Islanders Playing Matthew Schaefer too Much?! | New York Islanders News

Islanders Playing Matthew Schaefer too Much?! | New York Islanders News

back-to-back games with him playing over 20 minutes. Uh over 26 minutes if we want to be specific about it. Necessary. I shouldn’t say necessary. It’s necessary if you’re trying to win, which is what any coach is trying to do. And I know Patty said like we’re going to try to we’re going to give him the Nathan McKinnon treatment. They they don’t have the luxury to do that. And also too, it’s not like he’s not playing well in Is it sustainable playing 20? I’m not asking them to play him 26 every night. I I would like to see that even out to like a normal top pair number. 23 minutes, something like that is is more than fair. But if the kid is that good and through three games, he’s been really really good. I’m not going to go nuts and get into the car or whoever else conversations. I’ve seen some of that online and probably a little premature for that, but he’s by far their best defenseman already at 18 years old, three games into his first career, uh, his first season in the NHL. Yeah. Like, why why are you holding back? Why would you play him 17 minutes a night when one, you don’t have the the other five defenseman to justify it? And number two, he’s playing well enough for him. It’s not like he’s playing like but they keep tossing him out there for 26 minutes every night. He’s played well. That’s why he’s gotten the minutes. Yeah, I get the argument of you’re going to burn him out or you’re increasing the opportunity uh that someone does something stupid and runs him through the boards and he gets hurt. Absolutely. You’re totally right if that’s your argument. Totally fair. And that’s why you’re saying you being you being Matt, bring down the minutes to like 20. Average it out to 20. Sure. Um, it’s just like you’re saying, everyone else around him is so awful that you have to play this kid. You’re you’re trying to win games. Whether it’s you think Patty’s trying to win games to save his job or just trying to win games because that’s his job to do. Um, you got to put your best players in the best position. And he’s easily their best player. Easily. Like the underlying numbers are insane when Matthew Schaefer is on the ice versus when he’s not. It’s like Corsy of 60% when he is to 50, not even 50. I think it’s like 45 when he’s not. And it’s like what what are we even doing here? He tilts the ice so heavily in our favor when he plays. He gives us the best opportunity we have to win. Yeah. By a pretty significant margin, too. So why? Again, my my question that doesn’t really have an answer because I know you agree with me is why wouldn’t you play him as your top pair of defenseman? Now, if it’s again, I’m repeating myself, but if the argument is I don’t think anyone should play 26 minutes a night, okay, yeah, I I could get on I could get on board with that. But also too, like he’s 18 years old. Now’s the time where he’s going to bounce back the quickest over the next couple years. when he’s 10 years in the league. Yeah. I don’t know if he’s going to be able to play 26 minutes a night. The body’s going to hurt a hell of It’s going to be like Mitch with his pec flies. Incapacitated in pain. Yeah. Um you said 10 years. He’s only going to be 28 years old in 10 years. This is crazy. This is crazy. 10 years. Oh. Anyways, yeah. Like if you’re trying to win games, which I believe the Islanders are trying to do, um Matthew Schaefer gives you the best ability to do so. Is 26 minutes maybe an irresponsible amount? It is. It seems like it. I think not even I think we all know that the issue is everyone else is absolute dog I’m sorry defenseman. Sorry Pel Pock Mayfield, D’Angelo Romanov. You have been awful to begin the year. and he’s got to play he being Pawa has to play the 18-year-old because you’re just not doing the job. If you if they were just better, he wouldn’t have to do that. Yeah. No, he’s true. It’s 100% the truth. Uh the I don’t really trust the other pairs. And I’m not a, you know, I’m not a huge Scott Mayfield guy, but the D’Angelo and Romanoff pair has been brutal through the first three games of the year. and Pel Pulock. I mean, we how many times have we talked about Pulock being turned around the wrong way on on a goal? It’s happened multiple times already through three games. It’s really It’s really bad. Pelic has been fine. Uh looks all right. That’s good to see. But yeah, Pollock is just something’s off, man. Pel’s probably been their second best defenseman, I would say, easily. So, they have to play him. And I I made the the point earlier that that Patty wanted to play him like he did with Nathan McKinnon. Well, Patty had the luxury to play Nathan McKinnon like third, fourth line minutes because he had at his disposal at that time Matt Duchain and Ryan O’Reilly in their primes. The 22-year-old Ryan O’Reilly scoring 64 points and Matt Duchain scoring 70 points as a 23 year old. you have the opportunity to go stack those one, two, three down the middle. Well, we don’t have that opportunity to stack one, two left-handed defenseman ahead of Matthew Schaefer because they’ve been dog Yeah, they have. And like that team, I know not a center, but that team also had Gabriel Endscott already too at 21 putting up 26 goals and 65 points. Uh, so Statsy like and he could still play too like he was the old guy on the roster at at 28. He wasn’t even that old, but 28, right? Like they had so many options, whereas we we don’t have that. You can’t bury uh Schaefer down the lineup. You You may have thought so be at the beginning of the year because you’re going, “Well, he’s only played 19 games this year. We don’t actually know how good he is.” And then he comes out there and he’s like, “Holy this guy changes everything.” Yeah. It’s like, “Okay, yeah, we absolutely have to play this guy.” Yeah. Um we’d be stupid not to. Again, to anyone who’s who’s arguing like, “But he shouldn’t be playing 26.” We hear you. That is a lot. Bring it down to 2023 even. Although that it would depend on power play time. Like that that’s that’s the the change here too. Like they have to play him on the power play because it’s awful without him again. Yeah. Although I saw today at practice Tony D’Angelo was back running with power play one. But I feel like dude, why does this happen every single game? The fir the first two power plays it’s Tony D’Angelo. It’s like well we got nothing going. Let’s try Matthew Schaefer out on power play one for like power plays three through five and then we just start the whole process over the next game and then it works. So three through five looked amazingly different and you’re like what are we doing here? Like wow Barcelona and Schaefer open up a lot of space on the ice on on the power play. Insane stuff. I don’t I don’t know. Um hopefully they’ll figure it out. I I I don’t know what the plan is there. Maybe that’s they’re like trying to limit his minutes, but to what avail, man. He’s just so good. He’s just he’s just too good. They’re going to have to He’s going to end up with 25 minutes on average this

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