DeBoer, who replaced Patrick Roy as Islanders coach on April 5, said Schaefer was so impressive during his scouting for the Olympics that he was close to being named to Canada\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n
“I ran the defense at the Olympics for Team Canada and did a lot of scouting,” he said. “The management group included me in all the management selection meetings. We watched very closely all the\u00a0defensemen in the League, and honestly, I couldn’t believe my eyes the first half of the year what I was seeing from an 18-year-old.<\/p>\n
“The maturity in his game and how dynamic he was. … He was within a razor of being on that Olympic team at 18. I’m really excited to work with him and get to know him as a young man.”<\/p>\n
Demidov, selected No. 5 in the 2024 NHL Draft, is first among rookies in points (62) and assists (43) in 81 games. He averages 15:26 of ice time and is first among all first-year players with 20 power-play points (seven goals, 13 assists). He was named the\u00a0NHL’s Rookie of the Month for December after leading all first-year players with 14 points (four goals, 10 assists) in 15 games.<\/p>\n
Sennecke is tied with Schaefer for the rookie lead in goals (23), is second in points (60) and first in even-strength points (46) in 80 games while averaging 17:31 of ice time. He had a goal and an assist in a 5-1 win against the Islanders on March 4 to become the first NHL rookie to reach 50 points this season and the fastest rookie in Ducks history (61 games), besting the mark set by Bobby Ryan<\/a>\u00a0(69 games).<\/p>\n Voting totals (points awarded on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis): Matthew Schaefer, Islanders, 79 points (15 first-place votes); Ivan Demidov, Canadiens, 54 (one first-place vote); Beckett Sennecke, Ducks, 52; Jakub Dobes<\/a>, Canadiens, 19; Jimmy Snuggerud<\/a>, St. Louis Blues, 11; Jesper Wallstedt<\/a>, Minnesota Wild, 8; Ben Kindel<\/a>, Pittsburgh Penguins, 5; Fraser Minten<\/a>, Boston Bruins, 5; Ryan Leonard<\/a>, Washington Capitals, 4; Oliver Kapanen<\/a>, Canadiens, 2; Alexander Nikishin<\/a>, Carolina Hurricanes, 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DeBoer, who replaced Patrick Roy as Islanders coach on April 5, said Schaefer was so impressive during his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-603579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603579","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=603579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}