{"id":667391,"date":"2026-05-13T20:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/667391\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T20:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:17:08","slug":"islanders-matthew-schaefer-is-the-unanimous-calder-trophy-choice-as-nhl-rookie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/667391\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders&#8217; Matthew Schaefer is the unanimous Calder Trophy choice as NHL rookie of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Matthew Schaefer of the New York Islanders is the unanimous winner of the Calder Trophy as the NHL\u2019s rookie of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The league surprised him with the award Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Schaefer, the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/nhl-draft-2025-islanders-75451ea3d82d2b0bc9827cb476092e66\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:No. 1 pick in the draft;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;No. 1 pick in the draft&quot;}\" class=\"link \">No. 1 pick in the draft<\/a>, was the Calder front-runner from just about the time he made <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/new-york-islanders-matthew-schaefer-cfdff0c666ebf1bc30296873a2ad0380\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:his debut on opening night;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;his debut on opening night&quot;}\" class=\"link \">his debut on opening night<\/a> at Pittsburgh. He scored 23 goals to <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/matthew-schaefer-89eb666331da6b8e2562f7227904680d\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:tie Brian Leetch\u2019s record;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;tie Brian Leetch\u2019s record&quot;}\" class=\"link \">tie Brian Leetch\u2019s record<\/a> for the most by a rookie defenseman and finished with 59 points.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old became the face of the Islanders franchise and <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/new-york-islanders-1c3851a69831abac81a603f135688dd8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:helped them make a playoff push;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;helped them make a playoff push&quot;}\" class=\"link \">helped them make a playoff push<\/a> before falling short in the final couple of weeks of the regular season. He received all 198 first-place Calder votes.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal\u2019s Ivan Demidov was second and Anaheim\u2019s Bennett Sennecke third in voting by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP NHL: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apnews.com\/NHL;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;https&quot;}\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apnews.com\/NHL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Matthew Schaefer of the New York Islanders is the unanimous winner of the Calder&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,54300,48,10396,26752,2338,750,448,4847,82,246114],"class_list":["post-667391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-calder-trophy","tag-canada","tag-ivan-demidov","tag-matthew-schaefer","tag-montreal","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-nhl","tag-pittsburgh","tag-sports","tag-unanimous-winner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667391","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=667391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}