NY Islanders’ Matthew Schaefer led NHL rookies in a stat many fans never heard of

It is no surprise to see New York Islanders defenseman Matthew Schaefer at the top of a rookie leaderboard after the season he just put together.

But this might be one category even some diehard hockey fans have never heard much about.

Schaefer ranked first among NHL rookies last season in Goals Above Replacement, better known as GAR, finishing with a 9.7 mark and narrowly edging Justin Sourdif at 9.5. Think of GAR as hockey’s version of baseball’s popular WAR, or Wins Above Replacement, statistic.

Rather than focusing on one traditional number such as goals, assists or plus minus, GAR attempts to measure a player's total impact compared with what a replacement level player would be expected to provide in the same role.

The model incorporates different areas of a player's performance, typically including even strength offense and defense, special teams and other factors, then translates those contributions into an estimate of how many goals that player added above replacement level.

In other words, a 9.7 GAR suggests Schaefer contributed roughly 9.7 more goals of value than a replacement level player would have provided.

And among rookies, nobody provided more.

Schaefer led the way at 9.7 GAR, followed closely by Sourdif at 9.5. Ben Kindel finished third at 8.6, while Beckett Sennecke and Charle Edouard D'Astous were tied at 7.8. Ethen Frank followed at 7.5, with Ivan Demidov at 7.3 and Arseny Gritsyuk at 7.2. Ryan Leonard finished ninth at 6.6, while Denver Barkey rounded out the top 10 at 6.3.

For Schaefer, it is another piece of evidence supporting just how remarkable his rookie season was.

Traditional statistics already painted that picture. Advanced analytics apparently do, too.

And when a teenage defenseman is outperforming every other rookie in a metric designed to capture a player's complete value, it helps explain why Schaefer's first NHL season was about as good as it gets on every level, and by every metric.

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