DENVER — You hope he is not Jeremy Lin. You hope he is not Kevin Maas. You hope he is not Gregg Jefferies.
You hope that because you must, because you know how rare this is and because allowing yourself to believe fully in what Matthew Schaefer could be just 18 games into this 18-year-old’s career is to believe in things that would sound ridiculous if not for what your eyes are telling you, and you are on guard against disappointment.
Because there is no ceiling on what Matthew Schaefer could be. Because there is no historical precedent for this, at least not in hockey.
We are talking about the youngest player in the NHL, who leads all defensemen in scoring, who is playing 22:37 a night for the Islanders and who on Friday night in Utah got banged up and bruised and became the youngest player in NHL history to score the winner in overtime, 3-2 for the Islanders over the Mammoth.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
