{"id":385905,"date":"2026-01-02T03:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/385905\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T03:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:27:10","slug":"islanders-rookie-matthew-schaefer-not-bothered-by-olympics-snub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/385905\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders rookie Matthew Schaefer not bothered by Olympics snub"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew Schaefer took his <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/31\/sports\/islanders-bo-horvat-makes-canadas-olympics-roster-matthew-schaefer-left-off\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Team Canada snub in stride<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have a great team. I\u2019m young,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cSo there\u2019s a lot of great Canadian defensemen, they all play in the NHL. They got a good group. I\u2019m ready if I ever get a call.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is still a chance Schaefer will end up going to Milan as an injury replacement if any of the eight defensemen named Wednesday get hurt between now and the start of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.24574209;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38074576\" width=\"735\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20260101NYIIVUTA01228RS.jpg\" alt=\"Matthew Schaefer of the New York Islanders on the ice during the third period when the New York Islanders played the Utah Mammoth Thursday, January 1, 2026 at UBS Arena in Elmont, NY. \" class=\"wp-image-38074576\"  \/>Matthew Schaefer of the New York Islanders on the ice during the third period when the New York Islanders played the Utah Mammoth Thursday, January 1, 2026 at UBS Arena in Elmont, NY.  Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of guys still on the list but they have a great team,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re gonna do great things. I was really happy my name was even in the running. It\u2019s an honor when your name\u2019s in the running for the Olympics, for Team Canada, for your country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Islanders went to the line blender for the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/01\/sports\/islanders-start-new-year-with-embarrassing-loss-to-mammoth\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">second straight game<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>They re-separated Horvat and Mat Barzal on the top two lines, with Horvat centering Jonathan Drouin and Emil Heineman while Barzal played between Anders Lee and JG Pageau.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Cal Ritchie\u2019s line with Max Shabanov and Simon Holmstrom was the only one to stay unchanged. <\/p>\n<p>Marc Gatcomb and Anthony Duclair both drew out as healthy scratches with Kyle MacLean, Casey Cizikas and Max Tsyplakov making up the fourth line.<\/p>\n<p>Roy said that Ilya Sorokin is \u201cgetting closer and closer\u201d to returning from a lower-body injury and has been taking shots while skating on his own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Schaefer took his Team Canada snub in stride. \u201cThey have a great team. I\u2019m young,\u201d Schaefer said.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,374,3328,159,5190,5189,4,43,2787],"class_list":{"0":"post-385905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-islanders","10":"tag-matthew-schaefer","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-islanders","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkislanders","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-winter-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115823381352049446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}