If anyone knows the influence that Jennifer had on Matthew, it\u2019s Jim Nyhuus, one of his former minor hockey coaches and close mentors who will be at the Islanders’ morning skate on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Nyhuus coached Schaefer when he was a 15-year-old playing for the Halton Hurricanes of the South Central Triple A U16\u00a0league in 2022-23. That season, he had 32 points (12 goals, 20 assists) in 25 regular-season games and 14 points (six goals, eight assists) in five playoff games. \u201cJimbo,\u201d as Schaefer calls him, would go on to be a reliable and embraced member of Matthew\u2019s support system when his mom was sick.<\/p>\n
To this day, Matthew and Jimbo exchange weekly texts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that time, when his mom was sick, I was always getting emotional with him about it, trying to stay strong,\u201d Nyhuus recalled. \u201cBut he always had that strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, he is living up to his mother’s expectations of him, not as a hockey player, but as a human being, because he’s a better person than he is a hockey player, and that\u2019s saying a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
A person whose humanity, Nyhuus said, is a trait Jennifer exuded, as he found out firsthand.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 25, 2023, Nyhuus, his wife, Baillie, and stepdaughter, Maddie, were driving back from dinner in Muskoka, Ontario, located about 120 miles north of Toronto, when their vehicle was slammed into by another driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all suffered serious injuries, but Baillie\u2019s were the worst,” he recalled. “She sustained eight broken ribs, a collapsed lung, four fractures to her vertebrae, a massive concussion. … She still has a broken back.”<\/p>\n
About three weeks later, with Baillie in intensive care and Jim and Maddie recovering at home, a gift basket with food and other items was dropped off at their door by Todd, Jennifer and Johnny Schaefer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get emotional just thinking about it,\u201d Nyhuus said, trying to hold back tears. \u201cI mean, here\u2019s Jennifer. At the time she\u2019s dying. She’s got cancer. She’s going to die early the next year. And this family, not thinking about themselves, not thinking about woe is me, is there looking to help my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
He paused to collect himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch a humble family,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret where Matthew gets it from.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait to see him.\u201d<\/p>\n
For this, Matthew\u2019s NHL homecoming, there will be no shortage of supporters saying the same thing.<\/p>\n
NHL.com independent correspondent Stefen Rosner contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If anyone knows the influence that Jennifer had on Matthew, it\u2019s Jim Nyhuus, one of his former minor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-545370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}