ELMONT, N.Y. — Matthew Schaefer’s second season with the New York Islanders began with an alternate captain’s letter, bigger expectations and the same address. The 19-year-old defenseman left most of his belongings at Matt and Sydney Martin’s Long Island home over the summer, a fairly direct message that he intended to return.
“I left my clothes there and told them I was coming back,” Schaefer said. “Then they couldn’t really say no.”
The arrangement has become far more than a convenient rookie housing plan. Schaefer, the first player selected in the 2025 NHL Draft, has found a home base with Martin, the retired Islanders forward now serving as special assistant to general manager Mathieu Darche, along with Sydney and their four young children. The household has given Schaefer a place to step away from the demands of a fast-rising NHL career, and the Martins have gained another big brother for Winnie, Alice and twin boys Henry and Bear.
There was an early reminder that hockey sense does not always translate to household duty. After the Martins returned from a February trip to Lake Placid, Sydney had packed family laundry into grocery bags for the drive home. Schaefer helped unload the car, mistook the bags for rubbish and left them in the mudroom where garbage was kept. The clothes went out with the sanitation pickup the next day.
Martin eventually informed him of the mistake with a less-than-gentle nickname. The veteran’s conclusion was simple: the first real assignment Schaefer received around the house would also be his last. His new job was playing with the children.
That suited Schaefer. He has said he always wanted sisters, and Winnie and Alice have quickly taken command of him. Videos from the Martin home regularly show the Islanders defenseman joining in with the girls, while the twin boys, who turned 1 in June, have another oversized playmate nearby.
The comfort matters. Schaefer arrived on Long Island after enduring losses that would weigh on anyone, much less a teenager entering pro hockey. His billet mother, Emily Matson, died in late 2023, and his mother, Jennifer, died from breast cancer in February 2024. When the Islanders called Schaefer to the stage at the 2025 draft, the club presented him with a No. 25 jersey carrying a purple Hockey Fights Cancer ribbon. He kissed the ribbon through tears.
His path to the NHL was not assumed to be immediate. A broken clavicle sustained while playing for Canada at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship limited him to 17 games with Erie in the Ontario Hockey League during 2024-25. As the Islanders considered where their top pick might live if he made the club, Schaefer’s father, Todd, was mindful of his son’s emotional state and reluctant to impose on a young family.
But Schaefer had connected with Martin during summer visits with Islanders players. Martin and Sydney had welcomed twins on June 1, 2025, only weeks before the draft, yet Martin had already checked with his wife. Sydney was on board.
Martin knows the adjustment from his own rookie days, when he stayed at a Marriott across from Nassau Coliseum. He also brought an imposing on-ice resume to the role of mentor; his 3,936 career hits rank second in NHL history. Away from the rink, though, the Martins have supplied the ordinary rhythms Schaefer needed: bus-stop runs, dance classes, mini-sticks in the basement, dinners and football in the backyard.
Todd Schaefer saw the impact during U.S. Thanksgiving last year, when he joined the Martins and Sydney’s father, former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, at the house. Schaefer played basement hockey with the children, tossed a football outside with Esiason and moved naturally through a family holiday. Todd stood to thank the Martins at dinner, prompting tears around the table before Matt cut through the emotion by calling for the turkey.
For Todd, the value is clearest after games. Schaefer can leave the arena after a strong night or a frustrating one and walk back into a house where he is needed for something entirely separate from hockey. That has helped keep the sport in proportion.
The Martins and Schaefer also bring competition home. They wrestle, play games and try to win every minor contest available. Schaefer was listed at 6-foot-2 and 186 pounds on draft day; he returned this season an inch taller and seven pounds heavier. Martin’s explanation for the added size was less about his training influence than the natural progress of a teenager.
A Long Islanders Tradition
Schaefer is following a familiar NHL route. The best version of the veteran-host arrangement gives a young player a family setting, a professional example and enough normal life to prevent hockey from consuming everything.
John Tavares had that experience after the Islanders made him the top selection in the 2009 draft. Then-captain Doug Weight and his wife, Allison, brought the teenage Tavares into a home shared with their three children. There were memorable mishaps: Tavares backed Allison’s Range Rover into a tree before even leaving the driveway, and later struck their son Danny with a hard tennis serve, leaving the boy with a black eye. Tavares was distraught over both moments.
Still, what he remembers most is the education. He watched Weight balance an NHL career and family life, spent time with the children and gained a close view of what being a professional required. Weight, now a hockey operations adviser with the San Jose Sharks, had learned the same way after arriving with the New York Rangers in 1990. Hall of Fame defenseman Brian Leetch helped guide Weight through the unfamiliar details of life in New York, including restaurant menus and the routines beyond the rink.
Tavares, now with the Toronto Maple Leafs after signing there on July 1, 2018, has carried that example forward. Former Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies stayed with Tavares late in the 2022-23 season and through the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Gavin McKenna, the first pick in the 2026 draft, is living with Tavares, his wife Aryne and their children Jace, Axton and Rae this season, with a fourth child due this month.
McKenna said the chance to watch Tavares’ daily habits has been especially valuable for a young player, while also enjoying the energy of the household. His warning about playing with the Tavares boys: protect your shins.
The Islanders have seen the model work before. Mathew Barzal lived with Dennis Seidenberg, his wife Rebecca and their three children as a 20-year-old rookie in 2017-18. Barzal appreciated returning from the seriousness of NHL games to a family dinner and basement hockey with Seidenberg’s son, Breaker.
Seidenberg’s standards were impossible to miss. Barzal, living in the basement, once woke after a game to what sounded like children jumping upstairs. It was Seidenberg doing Russian lunges early in the morning. Barzal finished that season with 22 goals and 63 assists in all 82 games, leading the Islanders with 85 points and winning the Calder Trophy.
Seidenberg, now working in Islanders player development, remembered Barzal as excellent with the children while growing more comfortable as a young NHL player. Barzal, in turn, sees the same fit in the Martin-Schaefer pairing, describing Martin as a dependable older-brother figure who handles things the right way.
From Rookie Year to Leadership
Schaefer’s first season was remarkable even by the standards of recent Islanders rookies. He played all 82 games at age 18, posting 23 goals and 36 assists for 59 points, finishing plus-13 and leading all NHL rookies with an average ice time of 24:41 per game. He went on to win the Calder Trophy.
His production and poise made him a conceivable candidate for the captaincy after Anders Lee departed for the Utah Mammoth in free agency. The Islanders instead named Bo Horvat captain on Sept. 14. Coach Peter DeBoer, beginning his first full season behind the Islanders bench after being hired April 5, named Schaefer an alternate captain this week. Schaefer will wear the “A” for every home game and first did so Saturday.
DeBoer believes Schaefer will captain the Islanders one day, but wants the defenseman to enjoy Year 2 while dealing with the attention and pressure that come with becoming one of the League’s premier young players. The coach also views the Martin home as an important part of Schaefer’s immediate success, offering mentorship and a reset once the rink day ends.
Darche had suggested in May, when Schaefer received the Calder Trophy, that he would be surprised if the defenseman did not return to the Martins. Schaefer’s decision was already made. Todd asked whether Matt and Sydney truly wanted him back; Sydney’s response was that the family could not imagine the home without him.
Schaefer says he felt like family from the first time he entered the house. Martin is equally clear that the arrangement is not charity and that the Martins claim no credit for Schaefer’s on-ice rise. They simply see a mature young professional who has been through immense hardship, remains a kid around their children and has created memories that will last for everyone under their roof.
For the Islanders, the benefit shows up in the player wearing the letter. For Schaefer, it is waiting in the mudroom, at the dinner table and downstairs with mini-sticks — provided he leaves the laundry bags alone.
