Matthew Schaefer's NHL debut with Islanders a tribute to his mother

She was always there.

For years, Jennifer Schaefer had a front-row seat to her son’s journey to the NHL.

It was Jennifer who strapped on the goalie pads and let Matthew and his brother Johnny fire pucks at her in the driveway of their home in a suburb outside Hamilton, Ontario. It was Jennifer who pulled Matthew out of bed before dawn, handed him breakfast and then blasted their favorite playlist in the car as they drove to hockey tournament after hockey tournament. It was Jennifer, along with her husband Todd, who encouraged their sons to work hard, treat people right and dream big.

Matthew Schaefer’s big dream will officially become a reality in Pittsburgh on Thursday night when the Islanders’ 18-year-old rookie defenseman takes the ice for his first NHL game. Schaefer’s father and brother will be there in the stands. So will at least 40 other relatives and friends, while his grandparents will be watching on television from Ontario.

Jennifer will not be in the stands nor watching his big moment on television, but Matthew knows she will be there in spirit. As he has before every game since Jennifer lost her two-year battle with breast cancer in February 2024, Matthew will look to the sky and say a prayer to his mother before stepping on the ice.

“I wish she was here and we could be on this ride together and I could give her one more hug again,” Matthew told Newsday after a recent practice. “But I know she’s not suffering anymore. She’s healthy and safe up there. And she has a front-row seat to every game to watch me.”

Mature beyond his years

At 18 years and 34 days, Schaefer will be the second-youngest player to appear in a regular-season game for the Islanders, behind only Nino Niederreiter, who was two days younger than that when he made his NHL debut in 2010.

By almost everyone’s account, the 6-2 Schaefer is a remarkable teenager both on and off the ice. He’s the kind of player who has all the tools — size, skating ability and puck-handling skills — to become one of the top defensemen in the league. And he’s the kind of person who is willing to sacrifice for what he thinks is important, skipping his high school graduation this June in order to visit a grief center and speak to children who had recently lost a parent.

This rare package is the reason the Islanders took Schaefer with the No. 1 overall pick in June's NHL Draft, despite the fact he had played just 17 games for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters last season due to a bout of mono and then a broken collarbone sustained during the World Junior Championships last December.

With that No. 1 selection comes the burden of hefty expectations. Schaefer is slated to become the face of the franchise as it moves on from the Lou Lamoriello era to a team now being run by general manager and executive vice president Mathieu Darche. Not only is Schaefer projected to be the team’s top defenseman for years to come, he eventually will be asked to quarterback the team’s power play, which was ranked the worst in the NHL last season.

Islanders Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine believes that Schaefer will not only meet those expectations, but he will prove to be the franchise's best defenseman since Hall of Famer Dennis Potvin, a No. 1 overall pick by the Islanders in 1973.

“I’ve got to tell you, he’s handled it very well and he seems very poised and he seems to, at a very young age, show a lot of leadership,” LaFontaine told Newsday. “We’ve had some great, great defensemen but nobody comparable to Denis Potvin since he was drafted . . . What I see early on, I’m very impressed with and those are cornerstone types of players you want to build around.”

Fans have seen glimpses of Schaefer's talent in the preseason. Twice he showcased his skating speed by making chase-down defensive plays on breakaways by Philadelphia’s Matvei Michkov and the Rangers’ Matt Rempe. But it’s not just Schaefer’s ability to make eye-catching plays that has impressed Islanders coach Patrick Roy. Rather, it’s his eagerness to get better after making a mistake.

After Rangers forward Noah Laba powered past Schaefer to score the overtime winner in a preseason game last week, the rookie defenseman made a beeline for his coach’s office before heading home.

“I wish I was that mature when I was his age,” Roy said. “It’s refreshing to see, to watch. What I love is he wants to learn. He came into my office and wants to know ‘What could I have done here?’ ”

Schaefer’s maturity could be the product of having to weather the kind of personal adversity no kid should go through. Or it could be from being the baby brother in a tight-knit family with a 9 1/2-year gap between the two siblings.

Keeping things in perspective

The Schaefers are a sports-loving family whose sons gravitated toward hockey. Johnny, who would go on to play five seasons in the OHL, was Matthew’s hero. Both parents nurtured their love of sports at an early age, though it was Jennifer who was the more hands-on of the two.

“My mom was definitely the hockey mom of hockey moms," Schaefer said. "She would put on the equipment and do that for us. Me and my brother would shoot on her in the driveway. We would shoot at her in the spots where she had no padding. So, she would get a little bruised. I look back and I’m like, why did we do that?”

The family was thrilled when Matthew, then 15, was selected first overall in the 2023 Ontario Hockey League draft by the Erie Otters. Jennifer had been diagnosed with breast cancer two years before, but the outlook then was positive. Though it was hard to face the prospect of sending their 15-year-old away to live in another country, they understood that he was chasing his dream and felt comfortable after meeting his billet family in Erie.

It was then that Matthew’s fairly charmed life centered primarily around hockey took a hard turn.

In December 2023, Matthew’s billet mother died in an apparent suicide after being struck by a train. Two months later, Matthew knew something was severely wrong when Jennifer, who rarely missed a game, had taken a turn for the worse and was unable to get out of bed to watch him play on family day. Days later, his father shared the horrible news that it was time to come home and say goodbye.

“We had three days with her,” Todd told Newsday. “She had so much poison in her body that she mostly didn’t know what was going on. The things my kids got to tell her. My older son asked her if she was OK asking his girlfriend of nine years to marry him, and she squeezed his hand. Matthew would tell her I’m going to make the NHL and I’m going to make you proud.

“She couldn’t speak, but she heard everything they said. I remember Matthew said, I’m coming in for a kiss mom, and she puckered up.”

Counselors will tell you that there is no right way to handle grief. Matthew could have buried his feelings and disappeared into his hockey. Or he could have been overwhelmed by the pain and taken some time off from playing. Either would have been OK.

What Matthew chose was to continue to make his mother a part of his hockey journey. At the draft, he fastened a picture of the two of them together inside the breast pocket of his suit. When he speaks of his mother, he often talks about her in the present tense. He is determined to use his platform to both honor her and help others, supporting both cancer charities and those helping grieving or sick children.

He said losing his mother has impacted his perspective both on and off the ice.

“I believe everything happens for a reason," Schaefer said. "When my mom was battling cancer, she battled another extra year to stay and watch my OHL Draft. It’s just like, it made me so much tougher just in life going through hard times.

“I make a mistake in a game and, well, there’s a lot worse things that can happen in life, right? You have to move on. People get mad over little things. And I’m like, guys there’s a lot worse things that can happen in life. I think we’re lucky enough to play the sport we love and do what we love."

On Thursday, he will be playing it at a level that is every kid’s dream, a dream he honed shooting pucks at his mother in the family driveway. His dad will be crying in the stands. His brother will be sitting there with him. And his mother, the hockey mom of all hockey moms, will be there forever in his heart.

Newsday's Andrew Gross contributed to this story.