Did he surpass even his own expectations in his rookie season?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, 100 percent,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cYou don\u2019t think of anything like that coming into the season. I just wanted to make the team, I took it step by step. You can\u2019t get too far ahead of yourself. I wanted to get drafted and I was able to go to such an amazing team like the Islanders, and it just speaks volumes about how amazing they are as a team and the people that have gone through the organization. But my thought process was just the draft and then to rookie camp and then to main camp, and I just tried to get better every day and improve so when that first game hits, I wanted to be in that opening night roster.\u201d<\/p>\n
He credited a step-by-step approach in his rookie season that prevented him from getting overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to play in the NHL, it\u2019s the best League in the world with the best players in the world,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cI took it step by step there and then as I went through season, my teammates helped me so much to achieve all those things, but at the end of the day, it\u2019s not just me achieving those things, it\u2019s our whole team because they\u2019re the ones who helped me so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he heads into his second season in the fall, he is not ready to rest on the lofty accomplishments from his rookie season. Schaefer said a big reason why he feels he can improve is the comfort level he has established with the Islanders and the belief that he now knows he belongs in the\u00a0NHL.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur coaching staff is sending me all those things I can work on so whether it\u2019s in the gym getting bigger, stronger and faster or on the ice improving a lot of things, being able to get that extra step and extra level to my game that maybe I can improve on for next year,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s always things I\u2019m looking to learn but it will be a lot better knowing all my teammates, not going in as a new guy so I can go in like it\u2019s my home, like everyone has made it feel for me. I can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schaefer said he intends to live with Martin and his family again. Jokingly, he said he hopes to do so until he is 30.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest differences for Schaefer will be playing under new coach Pete DeBoer, who took over after Patrick Roy was fired with four games remaining in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cPete is just so smart and knows how to coach a game,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cHe\u2019s super chill on the bench. He\u2019ll come up and tell you, \u2018You could have done this,\u2019 but at the end of the day, he is just super relaxed and super calm where we can do our stuff. But he will always come up and help us and make us better players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schaefer said it still bothers him that the Islanders missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs despite being in a playoff spot as late as April 4.<\/p>\n
He was clear a playoff spot should be the expectation next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne hundred percent, you don\u2019t just want to play in the season and end early,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cYou want to win the Stanley Cup, that\u2019s the biggest thing. Making playoffs is a good start, but we just have to think about the start of the season and have a great start so you can keep it going so that by the end of the season, we\u2019re in the playoffs and then we can focus on that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did he surpass even his own expectations in his rookie season? \u201cYeah, 100 percent,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cYou don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-768547","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\/768547","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=768547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}