Defenseman Brayden McNabb quietly thriving for Golden Knights

Gerard Gallant isn’t asked about defenseman Brayden McNabb very often.

That’s just the way the Golden Knights’ coach wants it.

“We never have to talk about him,” Gallant said. “Brayden McNabb is another Reilly Smith on the back end. He doesn’t make many mistakes. He goes about his business and is a team character leader. He’s great; everything he does for us is great.”

That kind of lofty praise might be surprising to someone who only looks at the box score where McNabb’s impact is minimal.

The 28-year-old has two goals in five assists while playing in all 43 games this season and placing third among the skaters with 20:03 of average ice time.

McNabb is typically paired with Nate Schmidt and tasked with trying to shut down the most explosive lines the opposition puts on the ice. Thursday’s assignment will be Philadelphia’s dynamic duo of Sean Couturier and Claude Giroux when the Flyers visit T-Mobile Arena at 7 p.m.

A good night for McNabb often involves not being noticed at all.

“It’s a fun role for me and a challenge for sure,” McNabb said. “I like playing against the other team’s top players. It’s fun for Schmidt and I. We know we work well together. Some nights are more challenging than others, but it’s a part of the job. I never care if I don’t get any credit, it’s more just pride and wanting to win.”

Character guy

Gallant has been pleased with McNabb’s performance in that role.

“He’s not the prettiest skater, he doesn’t handle the puck the best, but he does his job every night,” the coach said. “He competes hard and is a character guy. We love having him out there. He does an unbelievable job on our penalty kill, and he plays against the top players every night. We don’t talk a lot about him, but he does his job perfectly.”

His defensive partner is more than happy to speak about “The Jacknabber.”

“He frees up a lot of room for a lot of guys, me in particular, so I really appreciate that,” Schmidt said. “You just have so much faith in him to the point where when the puck is on his side, I can start looking up and trying to find other guys coming into the zone not having to worry because I know he has such a good stick and blocks a lot of shots.

”I just know he’s taking care of it so I can not so much cheat, but shade other areas a little more knowing I don’t have to come help him out. He’s a big fella to get around.”

Schmidt pointed to Saturday’s 4-1 win over Arizona. McNabb had no shots or points while recording an even plus/minus rating, but had four hits, blocked three shots and was a major factor in a key win.

McNabb said he has developed a pretty good ability to assess his performance beyond the impact on the stat sheet.

“It’s more self-awareness and evaluation,” he said. “It’s about measuring how many chances you give up and if there’s plays to be made do you make them kind of thing.

“I like where it’s at right now. There’s still some areas where you can always get better.”

Avoiding penalty box

He has already addressed one area of concern this season.

McNabb had 22 penalty minutes in the first 11 games of the season, a stretch that included serving time in the box in six straight outings.

He has just 14 penalty minutes in the last 32 contests, including penalty-free performances in 16 of the last 18 games.

“It was kind of an ugly stretch there,” he said. “I don’t know what it was. It was almost a mental thing it seemed like. I don’t know, but it’s definitely something you don’t want to be doing, especially when I play a lot of minutes on the kill and you can’t do that in the box.”

It’s an issue Gallant hasn’t had to talk about in quite awhile, just the way he likes it.

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Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.