{"id":407602,"date":"2026-01-14T18:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/407602\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:14:12","slug":"islanders-matthew-schaefer-shows-off-mind-blowing-physical-abilities-on-combo-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/407602\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders&#8217; Matthew Schaefer shows off mind-blowing physical abilities on combo play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nhl\/new-york-islanders\/news\/islanders-matthew-schaefer-mind-blowing-physical-abilities-combo-play\/7cbeeeb3b819fda5066c76c3?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=appeared_on\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Islanders&#039; Matthew Schaefer shows off mind-blowing physical abilities on combo play;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Islanders&#8217; Matthew Schaefer shows off mind-blowing physical abilities on combo play<\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=appeared_on\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Sporting News;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Preferred Source by clicking here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Schaefer may be just 18.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>But the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nhl\/new-york-islanders\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:New York Islanders;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">New York Islanders<\/a> rookie chosen No. 1 overall in the 2025 NHL Draft already is delivering plays that will likely rank among the best of his career.<\/p>\n<p>The most astounding highlight so far came Tuesday night taking on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nhl\/winnipeg-jets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Winnipeg Jets;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Winnipeg Jets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Islanders trailed by two late in the game, and they pulled their goalie.<\/p>\n<p>The Jets got a breakaway with top scorer Kyle Conner, who seemed prime to slot it away and totally put the game to bed.<\/p>\n<p>But there came Schaefer, skating back full tilt and then diving face first while extending his stick to somehow foil Conner.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>About 30 seconds later, legs surely burning, Schaefer slotted in a goal from the point to cut the deficit in half.<\/p>\n<p>Just watch this. Schaefer is there early, No. 48, and then continues to be involved in multiple aspects of the play before getting his goal:<\/p>\n<p>As the post says, that&#8217;s 13 goals now for Schaefer.<\/p>\n<p>He has been as advertised and then some for the Islanders.<\/p>\n<p>There are very few players in the NHL who could come close to doing what he did in that sequence against the Jets. The fact that he&#8217;s doing it so early in his career makes it all the more impressive.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nhl\/ottawa-senators\/news\/senators-1-nhl-draft-pick-gavin-mckenna-forfeit\/b1d9e0bc88f92179b7f6aa20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Senators&#039; forfeited draft pick could cost them dearly;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Senators&#8217; forfeited draft pick could cost them dearly<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islanders&#8217; Matthew Schaefer shows off mind-blowing physical abilities on combo play originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,51360,1290,374,3328,159,5190,5189,4,2222,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-407602","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-kyle-conner","11":"tag-kyle-connor","12":"tag-matthew-schaefer","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-islanders","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkislanders","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-the-jets","19":"tag-winnipeg-jets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115894816837387571","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407602","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=407602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}