Matthew Schaefer
New York Islanders Defense
19 years old, 24 minutes a night, 23 goals, and 1,500 5-on-5 minutes.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | NYI | 82 | 23 | 36 | 59 | +13 | 38 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 222 | 10.4 | 24:41 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 82 | 23 | 36 | 59 | +13 | 38 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 222 | 10.4 | 24:41 |
This Season So Far
The 2026-27 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
23 goals and 36 assists in all 82 games — 59 points, plus-13, at 24:41 a night with 1,535 5-on-5 minutes, the most on the club and among the most in the league.
He was born in September 2007. This was his first professional season.
The Finesse Game
The skating is the reason he went 1st overall and it is already among the better sets of feet on any blue line in the league. He escapes a forecheck by accelerating into it, and he retrieves pucks he has no business reaching.
23 goals from a defenceman is a top-2 figure at the position and it comes from a point shot he gets through traffic: 305 unblocked attempts, median 45 feet, 60 per cent from beyond 40. That conversion rate will come down. The volume and the release will not.
36 assists says the passing is the more durable half.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 186 pounds, which is light, and it is the one honest reservation. He is moved off pucks in front of his own net by grown wingers and cannot yet clear a crease.
What he does instead is take the puck before the contact happens — a tight gap held with feet and reach, at a distance a heavier man would need his body to defend. The reach is only worth this much because of the skating. A long stick without feet is a licence to stand off and poke at a winger from four feet, which concedes the blue line to anybody skilled. A tight gap is playable only if a beaten one is recoverable, and his are.
That is read by elimination rather than seen. A 186-pound teenager does not play 24:41 a night against the other team’s best and finish at the 59th percentile by winning collisions.
38 penalty minutes says he competes anyway. 2 summers of weight is the standard answer and he has not had one. He is also the lightest man on his own blue line — Pulock, Bear, Mayfield, Pelech and Kessel are all over 210 — and the work in front of the net belongs to them.
The Intangibles
50.9 per cent of the expected goals, 62nd percentile, with the chances 72.3 to 69.7 in his favour across 1,500 minutes against the other team’s best.
Read that with his age attached: an average on-ice result, in the hardest minutes in the league, at 19. The plus-13 on a club that finished minus-16 is the other half.
7 points in his last 10. There is no other page in this book like this one.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
11 of 183 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 6.0%, 99th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
50.9% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 46.7% for his club in the minutes he sat: +4.2, 90th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 1,535 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.9%
- 63rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.9%
- 57th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 70 for, 57 against. Expected: 72.3 and 69.7.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe report ranks him 29 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 81 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 94th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 3.28 a game
- Distance
- 3.64 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.9 mph
- 72nd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 88.9
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Recent form
Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first
7
points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 6 assists, 35 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 · 1535 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Pulock54%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2025-26
- The club
- NYI took 48.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.9% — 2.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,535 minutes at five-on-five — 99th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Pulock | 46.1% | 56.7% | 49.0% |
| Mathew Barzal | 52.4% | 50.0% | 50.6% |
| Anders Lee | 52.8% | 50.0% | 50.1% |
46.1% together, 56.7% for him apart and 49.0% for Pulock apart. He was better away from Pulock, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Pulock.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
305 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 23 of them goals. His median goal came from 39 feet. 12% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 60% from beyond forty.