{"id":575281,"date":"2026-04-10T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T05:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575281\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T05:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T05:00:09","slug":"islanders-matthew-schaefer-ties-single-season-rookie-defenseman-goal-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575281\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders’ Matthew Schaefer ties single-season rookie defenseman goal record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Schaefer\u2019s march toward history keeps on rolling.<\/p>\n

Schaefer scored his 23rd goal of the season Thursday to tie Brian Leetch\u2019s single-season record for a rookie defenseman, giving the Islanders a 3-2 lead they never relinquished in an eventual 5-3 win over the Maple Leafs.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t really think about that stuff much, but when it gets brought up, it\u2019s crazy to think [about],\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely an honor to see some of those guys and what they\u2019ve done. I don\u2019t really worry about that. We just gotta worry about the games and winning games.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MatthewMatthew Schaefer (48) skates with the puck away from Toronto Maple Leafs right wing Easton Cowan (53) during the second period of an NHL hockey game in Elmont, N.Y. on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Heather Khalifa for NY Post<\/p>\n

Schaefer had been on something of a scoring drought, with his last goal back on March 21, though he did have seven assists in the seven games since then.<\/p>\n

The UBS Arena crowd chanted Schaefer\u2019s name for a few minutes straight after his goal Thursday, and the scoreboard acknowledged that he\u2019d tied Leetch\u2019s record.<\/p>\n

Schaefer waved to the crowd and smiled despite himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you not smile when you have the best fans in the league chanting your name?\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cIt\u2019s a team game and they\u2019re always behind us every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IslandersIslanders players celebrate a goal by defenseman Matthew Schaefer (48), left, during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Elmont, N.Y. on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Heather Khalifa for NY Post<\/p>\n

Mathew Barzal firmly denied a report that the Islanders had grown tired of hearing Patrick Roy talk about his Stanley Cup titles in the run-up to Roy\u2019s firing on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat couldn\u2019t be more untrue,\u201d Barzal said before the Islanders faced Toronto on Thursday. \u201cIf anything, I loved hearing the stories, and us as a group loved hearing stories about the teams he [played on] that won the Cup. Especially his [1986] team in Montreal, he\u2019d always bring up how they were an underdog all year. That kind of stuff fueled us.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that report, it\u2019s completely ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Insider Frank Seravalli said on his \u201cFrankly Hockey\u201d podcast that he\u2019d heard the sentiment from Islanders players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much talk about his Stanley Cups and the Stanley Cups he won,\u201d Seravalli said Wednesday. \u201cPlayers are really tired about hearing that. It\u2019s a great relic to hang onto, and it\u2019s a nice flex to have on your r\u00e9sum\u00e9, but you haven\u2019t won as a coach. And you\u2019re not a goaltender anymore, even though you\u2019re in the Hall of Fame. You\u2019re just a head coach and you have to be able to park that. Players told me they were tired of hearing that from Patrick Roy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony DeAngelo returned from a lower-body injury that had kept him out six games, skating 20:33 and recording two assists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good game to come back for,\u201d DeAngelo said.<\/p>\n

Isaiah George came out of the lineup as a healthy scratch to accommodate DeAngelo, with the defense pairs resetting to the same configuration that had been constant prior to the injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Schaefer\u2019s march toward history keeps on rolling. Schaefer scored his 23rd goal of the season Thursday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[38006,394,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-575281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-matthew-schaefer","9":"tag-new-york-islanders","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575281","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=575281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}