Sean Pearse

#isles Post-Season Report Card Scott Mayfield (D) Age: 31 41GP 0G 5A 5Pts Grade: A+ There's literally nothing any of you could say that could change this grade for me. I don't care about his numbers. I don't care how bad he looked. This grade has nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with the spirit of my favorite sport and the small, little stories that make the NHL the greatest professional league in the world. In 2011 the New York Islanders selected Scott Mayfield with pick number 34 in the NHL Entry Draft. His official NHL debut was on April 6th, 2014 for a very brief 5 game stint. But his final callup was in 2016-2017 and after that he has been a roster staple. Mayfield is a limited player. His straight line speed is above average thanks to his long stride and good mechanics but, like most bigger defenders, he lacks lateral quickness and edge control. His length and physicality have always been assets defensively and he has long been both a penalty kill staple and a veteran anchor in the bottom pair. Often paired, in recent years, with a revolving cast of young left-handed defensive partners while they are attempting to fight their way onto the roster. Penalties have been a problem on and off through the entirety of Mayfield's career. A career high 83 last year presented a big spike from 55, 38, 53 in the years before. But that's fairly typical for big bottom pair guys and in a defense that only recently gained a physical edge player (Romanov) he's been one of the few guys since Boychuk's retirement who is all-too-happy to put an opponent on their ass whenever the opportunity arises. But forget all this. You all know it. And most of you like or hate Mayfield for a variety of very good reasons. That's not what this grade is about. And none of that matters. He is the only exception to my typical rule that I've made in the last couple years of doing these report cards. Mayfield is a New York Islander. This is the only organization he has ever played for and I believe very strongly it is the only organization he will ever play for. He loves Long Island and his teammates. And this year his play was largely fucking awful. But that's because he played nearly every single one of those 41 games on a badly broken ankle that required surgical repair. I repeat. He played half of an NHL season on a badly broken ankle that required surgerical repair. And he did it the season following his largest contract extension. And he did it in the early months when nearly every other NHL player is sitting down and taking the year off to recover or try and return for the playoffs. And he did it because the Islanders had zero right-handed depth in the organization, zero options, and because the team needed him. I don't think this got the credit it deserved or the attention it deserved. We hear all the time about the culture of the sport and, in recent years, that culture is almost consistently under attack. Sometimes those attacks are well-aimed and well-earned. The good-ole-boys mentality of lockerroom and off-ice misconduct needed to be addressed and there's still work to do. But people have also attacked the idea that hockey players are willing to put themselves through extreme pain, extreme discomfort, extreme moments of violence in order to protect what the sweater represents and the players around them that wear it. These attacks are awful and my least favorite of recent hockey fandom. There are very few sports who have earned, so ferociously, a reputation the way the sport of hockey has. The Code is real and it matters to every kid coming up in the game. It extends into a value system that helps define who you want to be on the ice as a teammate. Scott Mayfield is 6'5" tall and 220 pounds and he put all of that weight on a badly broken ankle, day in and day out, for three months because the guys around him were trying to accomplish something and his presence, even wounded, would help them get there. He did it with every understanding he would not play in the playoffs. He did it with every understanding that if they had gotten a Stanley Cup he would not be dressed. It's one of the most selfless things that I have ever seen a player do at a time where, as fans, we typically expect players to have down years after they sign large contract extensions. This was all-time old-school New York Islanders behavior on display and nothing in recent years has ever defined the "Islander spirit" more than this. It's an A+. It was a fucking privilege to watch even though sometimes the visible pain he was in was tough. It's an A+.