{"id":21484,"date":"2025-06-28T09:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T09:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/21484\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T09:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T09:49:11","slug":"matthew-schaefer-selected-by-new-york-islanders-with-first-pick-in-2025-nhl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/21484\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Schaefer selected by New York Islanders with first pick in 2025 NHL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic has live coverage of the\u00a02025 NHL Draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES \u2014 The New York Islanders selected defenseman Matthew Schaefer with the No. 1 pick of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft<\/a> on Friday night.<\/p>\n

As expected, the selection of Schaefer kicked off the league\u2019s decentralized draft<\/a>, with many prospects and fans on hand at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live but with general managers and other team personnel stationed in their home cities.<\/p>\n

New Islanders GM Mathieu Darche was adamant that he would not trade the top pick, awarded to New York through the draft lottery, and he chose the 17-year-old Schaefer, who was the consensus choice by draft prognosticators. Schaefer becomes the Islanders\u2019 fifth No. 1 overall pick, following Billy Harris (1972), Denis Potvin (1973), Rick DiPietro (2000) and John Tavares (2009).<\/p>\n

Although he only played in 17 Ontario Hockey League games with the Erie Otters last season after suffering a broken collarbone at the World Junior Championship, Schaefer\u2019s talent and projection overcame any injury concerns, thanks in part to his standout showings at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and the CHL USA Prospects Challenge, and with Canada\u2019s under-20 team. The Islanders certainly weren\u2019t spooked by the teenager\u2019s lack of game action. The native of Stoney Creek, Ontario, is considered by many to be a future No. 1 defenseman.<\/p>\n

Given that he also doesn\u2019t turn 18 until Sept. 5, it will be interesting to see if the Islanders put Schaefer in their opening night lineup. The only No. 1 picks since 2005 to not start the subsequent season with their respective NHL teams were Owen Power and Erik Johnson, both defensemen. Power (2021) returned to the University of Michigan for his sophomore season before joining the Buffalo Sabres. Johnson (2006) played one season at the University of Minnesota before joining the St. Louis Blues.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Our experts\u2019 analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the right pick, and Matthew Schaefer is the right person for it. The Islanders could have made the sentimental choice. They could have taken local boy and childhood fan James Hagens, who was the front-runner for No. 1 this time last year. But it would have been a choice that invited accusations of it being a political one, or a business one, because for months Schaefer has been the actual No. 1 NHL prospect in this class, and on top of it, he\u2019s also viewed as a potential face of a franchise \u2014 the kind of prospect who blows away adults whenever they interact with him. They drafted a player who projects as an elite-skating potential No. 1 defenseman. They also might have picked their future captain. \u2014 Scott Wheeler<\/p>\n

Schaefer is a very intelligent defenseman with legit offensive skills. He creates a lot of chances due to his skating, but he can also break down opponents one-on-one with his hands and finds a lot of seams to make plays. He closes on checks at a high level due to his athleticism, but Schaefer is also a great competitor. He uses his size to make stops, gives a great effort every shift, and projects to be able to stop top players in the NHL. He\u2019s a great talent who has already overcome tremendous personal adversity<\/a> in his life. He projects as a star No. 1 defenseman in the NHL. \u2014 Corey Pronman<\/p>\n

(Photo: Dennis Pajot \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic has live coverage of the\u00a02025 NHL Draft. LOS ANGELES \u2014 The New York Islanders selected defenseman…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,1301,5226,5225,293,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-21484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}