{"id":549460,"date":"2026-04-10T10:22:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/549460\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T10:22:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:22:28","slug":"ny-islanders-d-matthew-schaefer-matches-brian-leetchs-nhl-rookie-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/549460\/","title":{"rendered":"NY Islanders D Matthew Schaefer matches Brian Leetch&#8217;s NHL rookie record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5l\">Matthew Schaefer continued to author history in the Islanders 5-3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night ay UBS Arena. The 18-year-old defenseman scored his 23rd goal of the season, passing Barry Beck (22 in 1977-78) and tying Brian Leetch for the most goals by a rookie defenseman in NHL history. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5o\">And he didn\u2019t do it quietly.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">With the Islanders pressing in the Toronto zone midway through the second period, Schaefer stepped into space, took a feed from Tony DeAngelo, and ripped a wrist shot through traffic and past the goaltender. The goal gave New York a 3-2 lead \u2014 and ignited the building.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5u\">As chants of his name echoed throughout the arena, Schaefer gave a quick wave during the next media timeout \u2014 a moment that felt as much like recognition as it did celebration.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Isles?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#Isles<\/a> Matthew Schaefer ties single-season NHL record for goals by a rookie defenceman with 23, matching Brian Leetch in 1988-89 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3q0pYseiHZ\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/3q0pYseiHZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SNstats\/status\/2042395531784134662?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">April 10, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">\u201cFor me, watching him from the bench live like that, just wow,\u201d new head coach Peter DeBoer said. \u201cI mean, what a player. How dynamic he is both ends of the rink, defensively, particularly. Of course, the offensive stuff, but for a young player, how defensively aware he is, he&#8217;s a really, really special player.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">The numbers only reinforce what the eye test already shows. Schaefer now holds the Islanders&#8217; rookie defenseman record with 59 points, which also stands as an NHL record for an 18-year-old blueliner. Among active players, only Lane Hutson has posted a higher rookie total.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">He\u2019s also driving play at a historic rate. With 209 shots on goal, Schaefer has tied Denis Potvin\u2019s franchise mark for a rookie defenseman and become the first rookie at the position to eclipse 200 shots since Dion Phaneuf in 2005-06.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">It&#8217;s been a remarkable and special season for Schaefer, now the drama is whether it will be one for the Islanders, who likely need to win all three of their remaining games to have a chance at securing a playoff spot, and get some help as well.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Schaefer continued to author history in the Islanders 5-3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-549460","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-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkislanders","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116379919523485566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549460","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=549460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}