{"id":378782,"date":"2025-12-31T05:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T05:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/378782\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T05:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T05:50:07","slug":"islanders-matthew-schaefer-becomes-youngest-defenseman-in-nhl-history-to-reach-25-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/378782\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders\u2019 Matthew Schaefer becomes youngest defenseman in NHL history to reach 25 points"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Islanders\u2019<\/a> defenseman Matthew Schaefer made history Tuesday night, becoming the youngest defenseman in NHL history to reach 25 career points. <\/p>\n

Another page in the history books for Matthew Schaefer! \ud83d\udc4f <\/p>\n

Schaefer, who on Dec. 30 was 18 years and 116 days old, achieved the feat midway through the first period of the Islanders\u2019 matchup against the Chicago Blackhawks<\/a>, assisting on a Bo Horvat power-play goal. <\/p>\n

The 2025 No. 1 overall pick now has nine goals and 16 assists for 25 points<\/a>. Going into Tuesday night, he was averaging 23:47 of ice time, the most among New York skaters. <\/p>\n

According to the NHL\u2019s Public Relations team<\/a>, Schaefer, who was playing in his 40th game of the season, required the fourth-fewest games by an 18-year-old defender to reach 25 career points, behind only Phil Housley (30), Ray Bourque (33) and Bobby Orr (38).<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s record is just the latest in a series of milestones Schaefer has achieved in his rookie season. Earlier this year, Schaefer became\u00a0the second-youngest defenseman<\/a>\u00a0to score a goal at 18 years, one month and six days. He also became the youngest player to score an overtime goal<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Schaefer, a native of Hamilton, Ont., came out of junior with plenty of talent and hype, despite only playing 73 career OHL regular-season games. In parts of two seasons with the Erie Otters, the 6-foot-2 defender posted 10 goals and 29 assists for 39 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daily Faceoff\u00a0prospect analyst\u00a0Steven Ellis<\/a>\u00a0wrote this about Schaefer\u00a0last June<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t a better, more deceptive skater on the blueline in this draft class, with his mobility being among the best we\u2019ve seen in recent draft classes,\u201d Ellis wrote. \u201cSchaefer is as good of a puck distributor as you\u2019ll find, too \u2026 that\u2019s partly because he thinks that game is at such an advanced level at his age, often luring opponents in before pulling off a deceptive deke and getting the puck where it needs to be\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of Tuesday\u2019s game, the Islanders were 21-14-4<\/a> with 46 points, second in the Metropolitan Division<\/a> and fifth in the Eastern Conference<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Islanders\u2019 defenseman Matthew Schaefer made history Tuesday night, becoming the youngest defenseman in NHL history to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-378782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}