{"id":547947,"date":"2026-03-20T01:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/547947\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T01:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:09:08","slug":"islanders-matthew-schaefer-becomes-youngest-defenceman-to-record-50-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/547947\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders&#8217; Matthew Schaefer becomes youngest defenceman to record 50 points"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As if we needed more proof that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/matthew-schaefer\/b311de92-0154-4902-b9c1-08de5a5a453d\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"b311de92-0154-4902-b9c1-08de5a5a453d\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Matthew Schaefer<\/a> is well on his way to becoming a generational talent, he just etched his name in the NHL history books. <\/p>\n<p>With his game-opening goal against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/teams\/new-york-islanders\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"new-york-islanders\" data-league=\"nhl\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">New York Islanders<\/a> blue-liner became the youngest defenceman in NHL history to record 50 points at 18 years, 195 days. <\/p>\n<p>He joined former Buffalo Sabres D-man Phil Housley as the only 18-year-old defencemen to hit that milestone.<\/p>\n<p>Selected first-overall by the Islanders at the 2025 NHL Draft, Schaefer has immediately made an impact, helping New York push for a return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2024. <\/p>\n<p>The Hamilton, Ont., native is third in rookie scoring \u2014 behind only Ivan Demidov and Beckett Sennecke \u2014\u00a0with 21 goals and 29 assists, but leads the first-year class in time on ice, sitting at 24:20 per game. <\/p>\n<p>The 39-24-5 Islanders sit third in the Metropolitan Division. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As if we needed more proof that Matthew Schaefer is well on his way to becoming a generational&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-547947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547947","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=547947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}