Islanders can help shepherd Matthew Schaefer into…
PITTSBURGH — Even now, when it’s all but universally anticipated that any No. 1 general decide will start off in the NHL, what Matthew Schaefer will do on Thursday evening in Pittsburgh is exceedingly uncommon.
It is standard knowledge, and it’s standard knowledge for a cause, that forwards develop quicker than defensemen. The NHL’s minimal age for the entry-level draft was set at 18 in 1980, and since then, just 10 defensemen have gone first general. Of that group, just 4 have performed more than 10 NHL video games at 18 years previous.
Schaefer, barring a whole face-plant, will turn into the fifth, with the Islanders making clear that he shall be in the lineup when the season opens against the Penguins, and that he’s very a lot half of the plan this yr.
“It’s an adjustment. The NHL, guys are all bigger, faster, stronger than anyone you’ve ever played against,” Gord Kluzak, the first defenseman to go No. 1 general and start his profession at 18, told The Post in a current cellphone call. “I used to be still growing. I used to be 18. [The Bruins] drafted me at 6-foot-4 and I ended up being 6-5. I used to be still growing. You’re very younger, both bodily and emotionally.
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