"Dobson**
Dobson has been sidelined since March 14 after being placed on the NHL's COVID Protocol list. At the time, the 21-year-old blueliner had played in the Islanders game the night prior - and in the first leg of a back-to-back set - against New Jersey. Then, on March 14, just ahead of puck drop against the Devils, Dobson was placed on the list and remained on it through March 24.
While Dobson was removed from the list last week, he didn't join the team for their four-game road trip last week with stops at Philadelphia, Boston and Pittsburgh. Instead, the sophomore d-man stayed back and skated on his own. Trotz was confident that Dobson's conditioning is in good shape, if the defenseman does indeed rejoin the lineup on Thursday.
"He's been on the ice, he's been active," Trotz said. "He didn't have much at all for symptoms. For the most part, he didn't even know he had it. He's in that group of people that had it but didn't really have the severe side effects from it. I think he's been able to bounce back. The workload with our trainers, the testing with our medical staff and all of that, he seems to have bounced back quite well. And he's been on the ice a few days now. He got rinsed pretty good every day and has rebounded pretty good. He's one of those guys that seems to rebound. You hear about other guys who take a while to rebound, but so far, he seems to be fine."
Prior to his absence, Dobson tallied 12 points (3G, 9A) through 28 games of his second season in the NHL.
