There is an exciting wave of young NHL talent making its presence felt: Let's talk about five of them

The veteran NHL superstars are still doing their thing. There is a great group of talent behind them also making an impact.

If you look at the top of the NHL’s scoring leaderboards you see a lot of the expected names. Nathan MacKinnon. Connor McDavid. David Pastrnak. Leon Draisaitl. Mikko Rantanen. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin still lurking around the top-20 even though they are in their late 30s and getting closer to their retirements. Players that have been doing it for years. Along with them there is a pretty big wave of young talent that is standing out and getting ready to take over those spots in the league.

Some of them already are.

Let’s talk about five of them that have really stood out so far this season.

1. Matthew Schaefer, New York Islanders

Young defenseman are supposed to take time to develop in the NHL. The growing pains are supposed to be severe and frequent. Maybe they will come in time for Schaefer. It is, after all, a long season and nobody is perfect through 82 games. But the early returns on the 2025 No. 1 overall pick are staggering. He has not only emerged as one of the front-runners for the Calder Trophy as the league’s rookie of the year, he has played a massive role in making what has consistently been one of the dullest teams in the NHL worth watching.

From the eye test, his skating is sublime. He is one of those guys that just immediately pops when you watch him. He’s fast. He’s everywhere. His skill and play with the puck is sensational. There are some players that you can just tell right away have the goods. This kid has the goods.

From a numbers outlook, he is doing everything from both an individual and team standpoint.

He already has 15 points in 19 games, the Islanders have outscored teams by a 15-12 margin when he is on the ice during 5-on-5 play, and he has the highest expected goals share of any defensemen on the roster. He is not just playing, he is playing extremely well. He is changing things.

What he is doing is also largely unprecedented for a defenseman his age.

This just does not happen. The ice time. The production. The immediate impact. None of it.

Just 19 games into the season and he is already logging over 22 minutes of ice-time per game (most on the Islanders by a wide margin) and has already played 428 total minutes. Going back to the start of the 1997-98 season (as far back as Hockey-Reference has Time-On-Ice data) that is already the seventh-most minutes an 18-year-old defenseman has played in an NHL season.

Only four players (Aaron Ekblad, Rasmus Dahlin, Jakob Chychrun and Zach Bogosian) played more than 500 minutes as an 18-year-old.

Ekblad and Dahlin were the only two to top 1,200 minutes.

If Schaefer continues on his current pace over 82 games he would log over 1,800 minutes, eclipsing the high-mark set by Ekblad during the 2014-15 season.

Ekblad and Dahlin finished their rookie seasons with 39 and 44 points respectively.

Overall there have only been 75 defensemen to play in the NHL in their age 18 seasons. Schaefer is already 17th on that list in scoring. Only seven players topped 25 points. Only seven topped 30 points. Only two (Dahlin and Phil Housely) topped 40 points.

Schaefer is currently on an 82-game pace for 64. It is expecting a lot to ask him to maintain that over the course of a full season. But it also would have been expecting a lot to ask him to do what he has done so far. The Islanders future instantly looks brighter due to his presence.

2. Leo Carlsson, Anaheim Ducks