With 'prodigious talent and boundless potential,' Schaefer tops McKenzie's Ranking

The true testament to defenceman Matthew Schaefer’s prodigious talent and boundless potential as the undisputed No. 1 prospect in the NHL’s Class of 2025 can be found in the numbers.

Not the goals or assists or points or penalty minutes or plus-minus or any analytics.

Just look at his games played this season: 17 in the regular season for the OHL’s Erie Otters; two in the inaugural CHL-U.S. NTDP Prospects Challenge; and two for Team Canada at the 2025 World Junior Championship.

Twenty-one games in all.

If, as expected, Schaefer is taken No. 1 overall by the New York Islanders at the NHL draft June 28 in Los Angeles, it will be unprecedented. That is, no No. 1 pick will have ever played so few games in his draft year as Schaefer.

The next closest among major-junior players? Twice as many games.

When the Boston Bruins took Billings Bighorns defenceman Gord Kluzak No. 1 overall in 1982 he was coming off a 45-game season cut short by a knee injury – 38 in the WHL and seven more for Canada at the 1982 WJC.

Schaefer’s year was initially curtailed by a bout of mononucleosis that kept him out of Erie’s first nine games, and then a season-ending broken collarbone suffered when he crashed into a goal frame versus Latvia in only his second game at the WJC.

So, when 10 out of 10 NHL scouts put the 6-foot-2, 183-pound dynamo at No. 1 in the annual TSN draft ranking poll, was there any hesitation because of the unprecedented small sample size?

“No,” said one scout. “None whatsoever.”

In fact, many of the 10 scouts surveyed didn’t just have Schaefer as No. 1, they had him in a class by himself.

“[Schaefer] is clear cut above everyone else,” said another NHL scout. “He could turn out to be as good as Scott Niedermayer.”

“The gap between No. 1 and No. 2 is substantial this year,” added another. “Schaefer dominates shifts and games on a regular basis on both sides of the puck. He’s the only prospect this year who you can say that about.”

While Schaefer is TSN’s unanimous No. 1, not all 10 scouts believe the separation between him and No. 2-ranked Saginaw Spirit centre Michael Misa is a chasm.

“It’s a small gap for me, not that big,” said one scout. “I’d put it as a 51-49 type of thing.”

“I’d say there’s a little gap between Schaefer and Misa,” added another. “I would also say the gap between Misa and [the rest of the draft class] is more substantial.”

“Schaefer is No. 1, no doubt, but you could make a case that Schaefer and Misa are in the same universe, above everyone else,” said a scout. “They both play premium positions. They both have the size, skill, skating and hockey sense you expect from a No. 1 defenceman and a No. 1 centre. If a team picking first overall this year really needed a centre more than a defenceman, I don’t think it’s outrageous to suggest Misa could be taken ahead of Schaefer.”

That scout, however, was quick to add he’s not expecting the Islanders, who won the No. 1 pick in the draft lottery, to do that.

Nine of 10 scouts surveyed by TSN slotted Misa at No. 2. The only one who didn’t had him at No. 4.

Misa applied for and received exceptional player status from Hockey Canada in 2022, allowing him to enter the OHL as a 15-year-old. He blossomed this season in Saginaw, scoring 62 goals and 134 points en route to the OHL scoring championship and Red Tilson Trophy as OHL Most Outstanding Player.

Misa entered the season as TSN’s No. 7-ranked prospect and rose to No. 3 at mid-season before finishing behind only Schaefer.

Meanwhile, Boston College centre James Hagens was heading in the opposite direction. Hagens went from No. 1 pre-season, to No. 2 mid-season, to No. 7 in the final ranking.

The 10 scouts were more or less split on Misa’s pro projection — four said they expect him to become a No. 1 NHL centre; five said he’s more likely to be a No. 2, and one said he might be a first-line NHL winger until he learns to round out his game without the puck.

Eight of the 10 scouts we surveyed project Schaefer as a No. 1 blueliner in the NHL; two project him as a “top-pair defenceman.”

“Not a franchise defenceman,” said one scout.

We did ask our panel of scouts a follow-up question on Schaefer.

That is: Did they consider the notion that had Schaefer played a full slate of games they would have picked apart his game more and perhaps he wouldn’t have been as firmly entrenched at No. 1?

“Well,” said one NHL head scout, “what is the old saying, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt?' I suppose it’s possible, but I really don’t think so. You could say he only played two games for Canada [at the WJC] but he was soooooo good in those two games. He didn’t just play well for a 17 year old; he was the best player on the ice.”

“When he left that game for Team Canada, they lost their best player, their biggest leader, the real Alpha male, and they were never the same without him,” said another scout. “He’s 17!”

“There is a correlation between over-scouting a prospect and finding more faults with his game,” added another scout. “So [with Schaefer] we will never know for sure if that would have happened, but there’s no reason to believe this guy isn’t the real deal.”

Schaefer doesn’t turn 18 until Sept. 5. His birthdate is 10 days shy of making him eligible for next year’s draft.

“He plays a premium position in an otherwise weak D man class,” said a scout. “Then you look at his age, his lack of physical maturity, the room for so much growth and then consider the impact he had in the games he played. All of those things point to him having the highest ceiling of any player in the draft.”

As for the nature of the illness and injury he sustained? Not a problem.

“Mono is mono,” said another scout. “That’s not concerning. He broke his collarbone. It’s a broken bone. It’s healed. It’s not a back injury or some issue that is complex or worrisome. So [the low number of games] is not a factor at all for me.”

But one scout did say one of the skills Schaefer may have to learn as he gets to the next level is to do a better job of protecting himself.

“He plays a totally fearless game,” said the scout. “And that’s generally good, a positive, but look at [how he broke his collarbone], he was driving to the net so hard without any regard [for his well-being]. He has the puck so much, he moves so fast and changes direction so quickly. He could be a player who is vulnerable to taking some really big hits. Is he going to be a durable NHL player?”

No one is suggesting Schaefer is Bobby Orr — that would be sacrilege — but Orr himself said one of the reasons he suffered some noteworthy knee injuries so early in his career was because he was so aggressive, even reckless at times, in making high-speed and high-danger plays in high-traffic areas.

Schaefer’s game does mirror Orr’s style in the sense of  having the puck on his stick a lot, travelling at breakneck speed through the neutral zone and going hard to the net with a lot of lane changes along the way.

“I mean, it’s not a red flag,” the scout added. “But it’s worth noting.”