Islanders' Matthew Schaefer wins Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year

Matthew Schaefer was surprised, even if nobody else was shocked by the expected news that the Islanders defenseman had won the Calder Trophy on Wednesday as the NHL’s top rookie. He was the first unanimous choice in more than three decades.

“I think the extra juice that makes it unanimous is that people recognize that this kid is special off the ice as well,” Islanders co-owner Jon Ledecky said at Cohen’s Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park after a media conference for Schaefer to discuss his partnership with Northwell Health and the plans for the Jennifer Schaefer Child Support Center — named for his late mother — at the RJ Zuckerberg Cancer Center.

It was the setting and the misdirection of the Calder announcement that caught the 18-year-old unaware.

Schaefer was booked for a segment on ABC-TV’s “GMA3: What You Need To Know” co-hosted by Gio Benitez and Rebecca Jarvis on Wednesday and told he was on the show to help promote next season’s NHL All-Star weekend at UBS Arena. Instead, his father Todd and his brother Johnny were waiting at the station’s Manhattan studio along with his girlfriend, Samantha Greene, and the family he lives with on Long Island — Islanders executive Matt Martin, his wife, Sydney, and their young daughters Winnie and Alice.

His father and brother surprised Schaefer as they walked out from backstage to tell him he was the Calder Trophy winner. Schaefer fought back his emotions as the Martin family joined him. He said later he was thinking of his mother, who passed away at age 56 in February 2024 after battling breast cancer.

“I didn’t know [my family] was going to be there today, that was an eye-opener,” Schaefer said. “When I won this trophy, my mom is a big part of it. That just comes to mind right away, how much she’s done for me and my family and how she brought me and my brother up and just the person she was. I’m so lucky to be able to do this to really help because of what I’ve been through with my mom.

“I saw how happy she was, how strong she was and all these kids and families are so strong, too,”

Schaefer becomes the sixth Islander to win the award in balloting conducted by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. He received all 198 first-place votes for 1,980 total points. The Canadiens’ Ivan Demidov finished second with 1,158 points and the Ducks’ Beckett Sennecke was third with 958.

Schaefer, at 18 years and 223 days old, is the youngest winner of the Calder Trophy, besting the Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon in 2014 by one day. Schaefer also is the first unanimous recipient since Winnipeg’s Teemu Selanne in 1993.

Schaefer, selected first overall last June after the Islanders won the NHL Draft Lottery despite just a 3.5% chance of doing so, led the Islanders in average ice time with 24:41 while notching 23 goals and 36 assists in all 82 games. He matched Hall of Famer Brian Leetch’s NHL record for goals by a rookie defenseman and his 59 points set a team record for a rookie defenseman. He played at least 20 minutes in 70 straight games to finish the season, the longest such streak in NHL history by a teenager.

Sennecke, selected third overall in 2024, had 23 goals and 37 assists in 82 games while Demidov, picked fifth overall in 2024, had 19 goals and 43 assists in 82 games.

The other Islanders to win the Calder Trophy are Hall of Famers Denis Potvin (1974), Bryan Trottier (1976) and Mike Bossy (1978) along with Bryan Berard (1997) and Mathew Barzal (2018). Schaefer is the third Islanders defenseman to earn the award after Potvin and Berard.

“It’s great that he won and it’s great that he had a good year,” Todd Schaefer told Newsday. “The money or the accolades doesn’t really mean anything. He loves being able to do this [at the hospital] with the platform. I think it’s more down the road he’ll look back and say, ‘Oh, my God, I won the Calder.’ Or, ‘Oh my God, it was unanimous.’ It doesn’t really do anything to him today. He’s happy and he’s proud.”

Todd Schaefer said what his son winning the Calder Trophy really meant to him was that “I don’t have to keep a secret anymore because I’m not good with secrets.”

When Todd Schaefer first arrived on Long Island earlier this week, he had to keep his phone location off and kept ducking some of his son’s calls in order not to give away Wednesday’s surprise. At one point, Todd Schaefer wound up talking to Matthew Schaefer on the phone while both were at the same hotel. Todd Schaefer said he was 10 stories above his son and had to pretend he was still back home in Hamilton, Ontario.

“He had no idea I was in town,” Todd Schaefer said. “It was so fun to surprise him today.”