Noah Dobson was the Montreal Canadiens’ big acquisition from the summer of 2025, and he didn’t disappoint. In a top pairing with Mike Matheson that most didn’t see coming, the right-shot blueliner put up 47 points while spending an average of 22:29 on the ice.
He promptly claimed the second power-play unit job from the hands of Matheson, and seven of his points came on the man advantage. It’s not a very impressive number, but considering how little ice time the Canadiens’ second power play gets, it wasn’t bad at all.
The defenseman led the team in blocked shots with 188, the highest number of his career in a single season, and went from a minus-16 rating with the New York Islanders in 2024-25 to a plus-five with the Canadiens.
Now that he’s had a full season to get used to the Canadiens’ system, the new city and his new teammates, expect the Canadiens’ highest-paid player to take another step forward. One area for improvement is his shot volume; he took only 158 shots in 2025-26, down from 196 in his last season with the Isles. That’s hardly surprising since newly arrived players do tend to defer to those who have been with the team longer, not unlike rookies, really. Expect Dobson's point production to rise this season; he may not hit the 70-point mark he posted in 2023-24 with New York, but the 50-point mark seems a given.
Unlike some of his teammates, Dobson didn’t spend much time in Montreal this summer, but with good reason: he and his wife welcomed their first child into the world. With the calendar turning to September, however, he has now returned and joined the rest of the players for some off-season training in Brossard.
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