{"id":500626,"date":"2026-03-03T05:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/500626\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T05:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:44:08","slug":"schaefer-leads-3-stars-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/500626\/","title":{"rendered":"Schaefer leads 3 Stars of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK\u00a0\u2013 New York Islanders defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/matthew-schaefer-8485366\" title=\"Matthew Schaefer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew Schaefer<\/a>, Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/arturs-silovs-8481668\" title=\"Arturs Silovs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arturs Silovs<\/a> and Minnesota Wild left wing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/matt-boldy-8481557\" title=\"Matt Boldy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Boldy<\/a>\u00a0have been named the NHL\u2019s \u201cThree Stars\u201d presented by GEICO for the week ending March 1.<\/p>\n<p>FIRST STAR \u2013 MATTHEW SCHAEFER, D, NEW YORK ISLANDERS<\/p>\n<p>Schaefer, the No. 1 overall pick from the 2025 NHL Draft, registered a League-high four goals in three contests (4-1\u20145) to help the Islanders (35-21-5, 75 points) become <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NHLPR\/status\/2028304632833777961\" rel=\"nofollow\">the 10th team in NHL history<\/a> to record at least three straight multi-goal comeback wins. Trailing 2-0 late in the second period, Schaefer scored twice in 55 seconds \u2013 his 17th and 18th tallies of the season \u2013 to surpass Phil Housley for the most goals in League history by an 18-year-old defenseman en route to New York earning a 4-3 overtime victory against the Montreal Canadiens Feb. 26. Schaefer did not find the scoresheet but logged a team-high 25:31 as the Islanders again rallied from a 2-0 deficit for a 4-3 overtime win \u2013 this time versus the Columbus Blue Jackets Feb. 28. He ended the week with 2-1\u20143, his first career three-point performance, in a 5-4 triumph over the Florida Panthers March 1 to mark the first instance in NHL history of a defenseman being the first rookie to reach 20 goals in a given season. Only three other rookie blueliners have compiled <a href=\"https:\/\/records.nhl.com\/records\/skater-records\/scoring-by-a-rookie\/most-goals-rookie-defenseman-one-season\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">as many goals in an entire campaign<\/a>: Brian Leetch (23 in 1988-89 w\/ NYR), Barry Beck (22 in 1977-78 w\/ CLR) and Dion Phaneuf (20 in 2005-06 w\/ CGY). In addition to leading the field in goals, Schaefer also ranks among the top rookie skaters in total time on ice (1st; 1,471:35 \u2013 more than 400 minutes ahead of the next-closes player), average time on ice (1st; 24:07), power-play goals (1st; 7), power-play points (1st; 15), shots on goal (1st; 146), game-winning goals (t-1st; 4), plus\/minus (2nd; +14), assists (3rd; 24), points (3rd; 44) and power-play assists (t-5th; 8) through 61 total games this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK\u00a0\u2013 New York Islanders defenseman Matthew Schaefer, Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Arturs Silovs and Minnesota Wild left wing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-500626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}