NY Islanders’ Schaefer on verge of more NHL and team history after record start

New York Islanders rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer’s start is no longer just impressive — it is historically singular. With a point Saturday in Ottawa, the 18-year-old became the first defenseman in NHL history to record a point in each of his first five games at that age.

He is also the first defenseman ever taken first overall to begin his career with points in five straight. What began as a promising debut week has quickly turned into a statistical outlier that is forcing the league to pay attention. Schaefer is now one game shy of matching Marek Zidlicky’s record for the longest season-opening point streak by a rookie defenseman to begin a career (six with Nashville in 2003-04). Five others — including Cale Makar and Hall of Famer Larry Murphy — stopped at five.

Among players aged 18 or younger, only eight skaters in the expansion era have ever reached a five-game point streak to start a career — and every one of them, until Schaefer, was a forward. The longest such streak at that age is seven, set by Alexander Daigle; Sidney Crosby and Wayne Gretzky each reached six, and Sean Monahan topped out at five. Schaefer is skating in that class as a defenseman.

With an assist to Isles statistician Eric Hornick in The Skinny, inside Islanders history, Schaefer is already in rare company. Only one Islander has ever begun his career with a longer run: Bob Bourne opened with six straight games in 1974. Among Islanders defensemen, the rookie record is seven, held by Stefan Persson in 1978. Schaefer is now within two games of that mark.