Number One in 2025 versus Number Two in 2022. Matthew Schaefer versus Simon Nemec. One’s an 18-year-old rookie. The other’s a 21-year-old in his third NHL season. They can both generate offense, but one is clearly superior in that category. And as for their primary job, defending, each still has things to work on, but, again, one is better than the other in that regard.

Monday night at Prudential Center, the New Jersey Devils hosted the New York Islanders and put their seven-game home winning streak on the line. The result, a 3-2 overtime defeat for The Garden Staters, brought that streak to a crashing halt. In net, Jacob Markstrom made 22 saves on 25 shots faced, while Ilya Sorokin saved 32 of 24.

“We didn’t do enough to generate enough high-quality scoring chances,” said Devils’ Head Coach Sheldon Keefe. “I thought we played a good game. I thought we defended well, did a lot of good things, but we made more mistakes than we scored goals. And that’s hard to make up for that. I mean, big mistakes. All three goals, really big mistakes. The game’s that tight.”

Getting back to our two young defensemen, the rookie Schaefer has generated plenty of buzz throughout the first 15 games of his NHL career. Among his highlights are: being the youngest defenseman in NHL history with a multi-goal game; being the youngest player in NHL history to open their career with a six-game point streak; and being the youngest defenseman in NHL history to tally a point in his NHL Debut. 

The other day, Schaefer addressed his performance by telling Stefen Rosner for The Elmonter, “I think just D-zone — there’s always stuff to improve on. O-zone too. Ending plays quicker at the blue line is a big thing. But overall, I’m just working on being an all-around player and being unstoppable.”

On the other blue line, Nemec is only just beginning to solidify his spot in the Devils’ nightly lineup and gain more trust from the coaching staff. And he’s doing it by being steady, rather than explosive. This season alone, Nemec had his first career three-point game (vs Colorado), and he also earned his career single-game high for minutes when he played 26:37 against Pittsburgh. 

Back in February of 2024, roughly one month into his own NHL career, Nemec told Kristy Flannery of The Hockey News, “Two years ago, I was in Slovakia and now I’m playing 20-plus minutes in the NHL in every situation…It is great. It is my first season and I’m playing a lot of minutes on the ice in every situation. Off the ice, we have great stuff here. We have everything that we need. It’s a dream come true.”

Schaefer and Nemec both began this game on the top defensive pair for their respective teams. Upon the game’s completion, Schaefer had played 21:26 of TOI, tallied a primary assist on Kyle Palmieri’s third-period power-play goal, and had three shots on goal. On the other side, Nemec scored his first goal of the season, tying the game with 4.7 seconds left in regulation, played 22:06 of TOI, and had a CF% of 54.17%. 

When asked after the game what the coaching staff’s message to him was with his recent uptick in playing time, Nemec said, “Just play my game and do my job.”

“Three injuries on defense, that’s part of it,” Keefe said when explaining Nemec’s increased responsibilities. Nemo has shown when guys are hurt and opportunity arises, he can step up and rise to the occasion, but we don’t have a lot of other options right now. We need these guys to step up and take these minutes on, take these responsibilities. So it’s great. For him to shoot one in and to get that big goal, it’s big for him.”

Outside of the two young blue liners, Timo Meier got the scoring started with a power-play goal from the slot 2:10 into the game, 1:34 after the Islanders were called for having too many men on the ice. 

Kyle Palmieri was called for hooking Nico Hischier with 7.4 seconds left in the first period. The power-play carried over into the second period, but New Jersey was unable to convert this time around. 

Then, 6:55 into the middle period, Bo Horvat got in behind New Jersey’s defense and sniped the puck past Markstrom to knot the score at one. On the play, Luke Hughes made a backhand pass in the neutral zone, toward the middle of the ice, that was picked off by Palmieri, who sent a cross-ice pass to Horvat as he flew towards New Jersey’s net. 

With 10:50 left in the third period, Calum Ritchie was sent to the box for hooking Nemec, giving the Devils their third power-play of the game. The top unit, fueled by Jack Hughes’ dancing and darting, attempted to take the lead but couldn’t break through Ilya Sorokin’s defenses. The Devils received another power-play opportunity just over two minutes after the previous one expired. And once more, The Garden Staters were unable to convert despite having several quality chances to do so.

Then, 43 seconds after New Jersey’s fourth power-play expired, Paul Cotter was sent to the box for interfering with Emil Heineman at 15:59 of the third period. It was the Islanders’ first power-play of the game. Kyle Palmieri cleaned up the loose puck off a scramble to give the Islanders a 2-1 lead with 2:53 left in the third period. Schaefer was credited with the primary assist. 

Not to be outdone, with just 4.7 seconds left in the third period, Nemec scored his first goal of the season off a blast from the blue line to tie the game 2-2 and send the game to overtime, New Jersey’s fourth consecutive home overtime game. 

“I just close my eyes and try to shoot,” Nemec said. “Not much you can do last five seconds…That building was crazy. It was almost like that playoff goal. I was hoping we (were) gonna win it in overtime, but it didn’t work out… Pretty tight game.”

“I really liked the reaction that the team showed,” Meier explained. “That we battled until the last second and got one back there. But I think the story of the game is just, we gotta play smarter, especially when it’s so obvious. We really can’t force things…You gotta stay patient. Obviously, we don’t wanna go to overtime. (We) wanna close out before. We’ve played a lot with the lead. I thought we’ve done a lot of good things playing with the lead. But tonight, like I said, too many mistakes forced by ourselves.”

The extra period was over quickly as Mathew Barzal broke in after receiving a pass from Jonathan Drouin and sniped the puck past Markstrom at 1:17 to end the game and the Devils’ home winning streak. 

“I think we had a good start to the game,” said Timo Meier. “And then, the longer the game went, they did a good job not giving up much off the rush and we kind of played into that. I thought we turned too many pucks over trying to force things off the rush instead of putting pucks behind them. That kind of put us in a situation where we pulled the goalie and we found a way to get to overtime. Obviously wanted to get two points, but, yeah, I think that was the biggest thing.”

Martone and Schaefer photo by Sportsology