ELMONT, NY — How many times have you heard a sold-out NHL arena chanting the name of an 18-year-old defenseman? Probably not many.
So after Matthew Schaefer’s circus goal — a one-timer from the right circle that somehow hit off the forest of legs in front of him, looped off the crossbar, off the back of Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, and in to cut the New York Islanders’ first-period deficit to 2-1 with 1:59 to go in the first period — the 17,000-plus in attendance’s boisterous support of the rookie phenom could not be ignored.
“That got me fired up,” Schaefer admitted.
It was the first of two goals on Sunday night against the two-time defending Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers for the 2025 No. 1 overall pick, and his third and fourth in the last three games. He became the first 18-year-old defenseman ever to score 20 goals in a single season and is now just the second Islanders defenseman ever to light the lamp that many times.
The other? Only one of the greatest blue liners in the history of the game, Denis Potvin.
“He’s a stud, he’s an absolute stud,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “He just puts himself in positions to score, and regardless of if he got a bounce or two, he’s putting himself there and he’s getting the puck through to the net. And he does that night in and night out.”
He is just the 22nd 18-year-old at any position to record 20 goals in a season, too — the benchmark tally coming with 9:31 left in regulation to give the Islanders a 4-3 lead after overturning deficits of 2-0 and 3-2. After Sam Reinhart tied the game for Florida with 1:58 remaining, Anders Lee powered his way to the game-winner with just 30.9 seconds left for New York’s fifth straight win.
“How many times have I said the word impressive?” Islanders head coach Patrick Roy said of Schaefer. “He’s doing things very special out there. The quality of decision-making is impressive as well. He’s jumping into the plays, shooting with confidence. As a result, he got a couple of goals. One was a lucky one… but the second one was a nice play in the entry.”
The stats speak for themselves, but Schaefer’s sheer presence has injected new life and exuberance, revitalizing a franchise that had been mired in mediocrity — even grown stale — after two straight Stanley Cup semifinal appearances in 2020 and 2021. What used to be common pitfalls for the Islanders are becoming their strengths.
They lead the NHL with 15 wins when tied after two periods. They’ve won three straight games when they’ve trailed 2-0. An organization whose brand of hockey had become so monotonous, almost one-dimensional, plays an intense, offensive style implemented by new general manager Mathieu Darche, sustained by Roy, and executed in part by Schaefer.
He constantly joins New York’s rush in transition, bombs down from the blue line to support the attack, and is hardly gun-shy when the puck is on his stick.
“There’s a buzz in the air when he touches the puck,” Lee said. “He’s creating so much, and he’s all over the ice offensively and defensively, and there’s no doubt we feed off that.”
A team that was not expected to factor into the playoff race is very much entrenched in a postseason push with 21 games to go. The Islanders hold the No. 3 seed in the Metropolitan Division, which is the final automatic playoff berth in the division. They are level on points (75) with the second-place Pittsburgh Penguins and have a six-point gap over the Washington Capitals entering Monday night’s action.
“These are some big games,” Schaefer said. “It just feels like everyone finds that peace of mind where it’s like, ‘We need these wins. We got to battle back.’ It’s a team effort.”
Schaefer’s and the Islanders’ emergence is finally getting more butts in the seats at UBS Arena, too. Sunday night’s win, which was the team’s eighth in their last 10 games, featured a 12th-straight shutout at a state-of-the-art venue that has been languishing near the bottom of the NHL’s attendance figures for much of the last three years.
We’re going to sell out the last 12 [games of the regular season]. That wasn’t the case when we started the year,” Islanders president of business operations Kelly Cheeseman said. “Really, around Thanksgiving is when we saw the tide turning, which is not irregular in the NHL. But I don’t think the team saw that last year or the prior year. All the excitement… a lot of it is because of what the kid is doing.”
