inside the islanders The search for Matthew Schaefer rookie comps — and what it sets up for his Islanders Year 2 By Ethan Sears Published Aug. 13, 2026, 6:40 a.m. ET Matthew Schaefer reacts to a goal during the Islanders' game on March 24, 2026. Robert Sabo for the NY Post Matthew Schaefer’s rookie year was good enough that, in trying to find others to compare it to, there is almost no choice but to loosen the criteria.
The idea of this newsletter was to look at sophomore seasons for defensemen that followed comparable rookie seasons to Schaefer’s.
Except, at least in the post-lockout era — which is an obvious demarcation point for any relevant comparison — Schaefer’s rookie season is, just as a matter of course, the best that any defenseman has had. So when you search Stathead for rookie seasons for a defenseman with at least 2,000 minutes played and 50 or more points, his is the only one that shows up.
This is relevant context because in comparing Schaefer to anyone, you are almost always using a lower baseline, at least based on his rookie season. Whether that holds into Year 2 and beyond is an open question — plenty of players have had great rookie years only to burn out, or more often, simply level out — but the scale of how special his rookie year was is an easy thing to overlook.
