Schaefer set the League record for points by an 18-year-old\u00a0defenseman, tied the single-season NHL record for most goals by a rookie defenseman and became the first defenseman in more than 90 years to lead rookies in goals (tied or outright).<\/p>\n
He is the first Islanders player to win the award since forward Mathew Barzal<\/a>\u00a0in 2017-18 and sixth in their history. At 18 years, 223 days on the final day of the regular season, Schaefer is the youngest Calder Trophy winner in NHL history, one day younger than Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>\u00a0in 2013-14 (18 years, 224 days).<\/p>\n Schaefer was one of three finalists for the Calder, along with forwards Ivan Demidov<\/a>\u00a0(Montreal Canadiens) and Beckett Sennecke<\/a>\u00a0(Anaheim Ducks).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely an honor to see so many great names on that trophy,\u201d the Islanders defenseman said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a dream come true. Obviously, Demidov and Sennecke, they\u2019re great players and they could have won it too. I think any of us could have won it, because we all had great years, especially them too. They\u2019ve done great things for the League.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely an honor and it\u2019s a privilege to have this trophy.\u201d<\/p>\n It was announced Monday that Schaefer, with the help of a $150,000 donation from the Islanders Children\u2019s Foundation, has partnered with Northwell Health to open the Jennifer Schaefer Child Support Center at the RJ Zuckerberg Cancer Center in New Hyde Park, New York, in honor of his late mother.\u00a0<\/p>\n Once the center opens in October, Schaefer will make multiple visits throughout the year to provide smiles for those going through a similar experience he had.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe is in such a good place on the ice and off the ice,\u201d Todd Schaefer said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s the Islanders, whether it\u2019s the Martin family, it\u2019s just everybody. He\u2019s just set up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Schaefer set the League record for points by an 18-year-old\u00a0defenseman, tied the single-season NHL record for most goals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-667492","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\/667492","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=667492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}