Who Had A Better Rookie Season: Islanders' Schaefer Or Canadiens' Hutson?

The Calder Trophy has never been won by a defenseman in consecutive seasons during the NHL's expansion era.

That will almost certainly change this year.

Lane Hutson of the Montreal Canadiens and Matthew Schaefer of the New York Islanders have proven to possess game-breaking talent beyond their years and will likely have their names beside each other for years to come, not just on the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year but in the discussion about the best young blueliners.

Schaefer and Hutson possess offensive ceilings that equal and potentially surpass what fans would have thought was the peak for generational blueliners in this current era of hockey from the likes of Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes.

It's already remarkable that they've been able to establish themselves as true No. 1 defensemen in such a short period of time, but it's even more impressive how they've managed to do it in very different ways.

Let's take a deeper look at the historic rookie seasons from Hutson and Schaefer and try to determine whose immediate impact was more valuable.

It cannot be overstated just how pivotal Schaefer has been to the Islanders' season and their overall competitive future as a franchise.

What he's doing at 18 is simply unheard of, stepping into a top-pairing role while averaging over 24 minutes of ice time and becoming the first defenseman of his age to ever score 20 goals in a season.

Schaefer's overall usage under Islanders coach Patrick Roy has also been much less sheltered than Hutson's was under Martin St-Louis in his rookie season. He's started just under 47 percent of his 5-on-5 shifts in the offensive zone compared to Hutson's 68 percent in 2024-25, which was second-most in the league last year, according to naturalstattrick.com.

This makes sense for Hutson's strengths. He does most of his damage on the cycle with his deceptive head fakes and handling.

However, Roy isn't afraid to put Schaefer in uncomfortable positions that defensive-zone starts can sometimes present. 

Those starts in his own zone have highlighted his mastery as a one-man breakout who generates zone entries at one of the highest rates among defenders in the league, according to data tracked by allthreezones.com. (Did I mention he's only 18?)

Schaefer has also been a fixture on the team's top penalty kill.

While the Canadiens have never needed Hutson to play in that role, it reinforces the greater defensive responsibility placed on Schaefer as a teenager to perform against top competition compared to Hutson's specialized deployment.

This leads to another major factor in how both players can be measured during their rookie campaigns: the quality of their teammates.

As a rookie, Hutson filled a huge need for the Canadiens, which had a strong foundation of offensive talent around him, by providing dynamic puck movement from the back end that elevated their overall 5-on-5 and power-play production.

The Canadiens jumped from 26th to 17th in goals-for per game and 27th to 21st on the power play in Hutson's first season. With 60 assists last year, tied for the most by a rookie in NHL history, his offensive impact was undeniable.

The Islanders are in a different stage in their development, but they are firmly in the playoff race like the Canadiens were last season.

There wasn't a skater on the 2024-25 Islanders who even reached 60 points, and with Noah Dobson traded at the draft, they needed Schaefer to jump in right away. But they couldn't have anticipated the type of valuable minutes he has provided.

Schaefer may not score as many points as Hutson did last season based on the quality of their respective teammates, but that doesn't make him any less valuable.

Schaefer has the third-highest wins above replacement rating (WAR) among defensemen this season at 3.25 compared to Hutson's 1.67 in 2024-25, which ranked 31st among blueliners, according to hockeystats.com. 

WAR looks to measure how many wins a player contributes to their team compared to a replacement-level player. Considering how strong of a season Hutson had, it's staggering to see how much more valuable Schaefer has been to the Islanders.

Overall, Hutson's arrival in the NHL felt like the final puzzle piece snapping perfectly into place for the Canadiens' offense.

Schaefer has looked more like the table the Islanders can build the puzzle on.

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