{"id":81823,"date":"2025-07-21T23:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T23:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/81823\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T23:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T23:21:14","slug":"schaefer-eager-to-play-for-islanders-awesome-coach-roy-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/81823\/","title":{"rendered":"Schaefer eager to play for Islanders, \u2018awesome\u2019 coach Roy this season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>TORONTO &#8212;<\/strong> When <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/matthew-schaefer-8485366\" title=\"Matthew Schaefer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew Schaefer<\/a> was born on Sept. 5, 2007, it had been more than four years since Patrick Roy played the final NHL game in his Hall of Fame career on April 22, 2003.<\/p>\n<p>Or, to be exact, 1,599 days.<\/p>\n<p>But even though Roy, now the New York Islanders coach, had concluded his playing days long before Schaefer could see him on the ice, the defenseman, who the Islanders selected No. 1 in the 2025 NHL Draft, is well aware of the status his coach holds within the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah obviously he\u2019s one of the best,\u201d Schaefer said at the 11th annual Smilezone Celebrity Golf Tournament at Lionhead Golf Club in Brampton, Ontario, on Monday. \u201cWhen I walked into the Upper Deck offices recently, I saw things about him all over the place. He\u2019s been awesome to me. He\u2019s such a great guy too. Hockey was such a great thing (for him as a player) but he\u2019s also a great human being so to have a coach like that is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Schaefer is determined to be taking instruction from Roy when the Islanders begin the regular season Oct. 9 at the Pittsburgh Penguins.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just can\u2019t wait,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cI want to be on that opening night roster so there is still a lot of work to be put in this summer, but I can\u2019t wait to get ready at camp.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now that it has been a little more than three weeks since Schaefer was announced as the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, he is glad that the extra events and appearances that accompany such a distinction have started to wind down. As much as he said he loved the entire experience, Schaefer is eager to put his focus where he knows it needs to be.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been super crazy,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cA lot of media, a lot of publicity stuff and so it\u2019s been awesome, but it\u2019s awesome now that it is basically over, the draft is over, I don\u2019t have to worry about that. Now I can just worry about getting in the gym and on the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO &#8212; When Matthew Schaefer was born on Sept. 5, 2007, it had been more than four years&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":81824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-81823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114893795013286609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81823","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=81823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}