Leading up to the 2025 NHL draft, as part of the San Jose Sharks’ due diligence, they had one of their team psychologists interview Matthew Schaefer. This was not a typical draft interview, because the psychologist was not a hockey guy and didn’t know anything about the young man with whom he was speaking. He also quite obviously didn’t know Schaefer’s backstory.
One of the questions that almost always comes up in some form or another in pre-draft interviews involves overcoming personal obstacles and adversity. Young, successful men who’ve led charmed lives often have a little trouble with that one. But teams need not ask that of Matthew Schaefer, the consensus No. 1 prospect in the 2025 draft. They already know what this kid can overcome, and it has nothing to do with colliding with a goalpost at the World Junior Championship just as he was becoming the leader of Canada’s defense corps.
No, it’s much more than that. The pain of a busted collarbone eventually went away. The pain of a 16-year-old losing his mother to breast cancer less than three months after his billet mom with the Erie Otters died by suicide will never subside. But neither will the memories. That’s what Matthew Schaefer takes comfort in now. Love could not keep Jennifer Schaefer alive, though she used it to put up one hell of a fight, but it still fills her son’s heart. It’s there when he says a prayer to her before every game he plays. It’s there when he visits her gravesite. He usually goes alone because he doesn’t want to make his father and older brother sad. And because he can’t hug his mother anymore, he’ll embrace her tombstone and kiss the top of it before he leaves.
Once he establishes himself as an NHLer, Schaefer wants to set up a Smilezone Foundation at the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre in Hamilton, where Jennifer died in February 2024, just hours after Matthew asked his unresponsive mother for a kiss and miraculously got one. Supported by the Hockey Helping Kids initiative, the Smilezone Foundation will, among other things, go into a hospital and transform a waiting room or patient care or treatment room into a ‘Smilezone,’ equipped with bright murals, games and toys to give kids a little happiness in a place that can be scary and depressing.
Back to the phone call with the guy from the Sharks. They spoke for a time about Schaefer’s journey in hockey and life, and it was fair to say the psychologist felt the impact. “He was like, ‘Wow, you could be a therapist,’” Schaefer said. “With your personality, you can help guys with everything you’ve been through.’ He said, ‘You’re handling it so well.’”
The hockey talent that has separated Schaefer from the rest of the 2025 draft cohort is just part of what makes him so coveted. On the ice, he’s been compared to the likes of Drew Doughty and Cale Makar at the top end, but even if he doesn’t reach that level, he’s still a minute-munching, all-situations ‘D’ who excels in all areas of the ice. He’ll captain an NHL team someday. Maybe not the Sharks, though, since the New York Islanders moved all the way up from 10th to win the right to pick at No. 1.
You want personality? Schaefer has it in boatloads. Looking for a winner? He scored the double-OT goal to give Team Ontario the gold medal at the Canada Winter Games, then led Canada to gold medals at the 2023 Under-17 World Hockey Challenge, 2024 U-18 worlds and 2024 U-18 Hlinka Gretzky Cup. He seems impervious to the pressures of going first in the draft, and, just as importantly, he treats everyone from arena workers to NHL execs with equal respect.
Much of that comes from Jennifer and her husband, Todd, who instilled it in Matthew and his older brother, Johnny, from a young age. “They’d send us out on hot days to give cold water bottles to the garbage collectors,” Schaefer recalled. “Holding doors open for people. If someone can’t afford something at Tim Hortons, I love to get it for them. But when this happened to my mom, it puts it into perspective so much. You see people who go through stuff, but you never imagine it to be you until it is. You never in a million years would imagine it to be yourself.”
And why would he? Schaefer was living a charmed life in suburban Hamilton. His mom would regularly don the goalie pads so her two sons could take shots at her. Johnny, now 27, also played in the OHL. When Johnny played minor hockey, Jennifer would often cheer him on while playing mini-sticks with Matthew. Jennifer had beaten cancer once, but even when it returned in 2023, the prognosis looked good.
Meanwhile, Matthew went first overall to Erie in the OHL draft that year and was to billet with Emily Matson, a popular local news anchor, and her husband, Ryan Onderko. Jennifer cried each day leading up to her son’s departure but was put at ease when she met his billets. The day she met Emily and Ryan was the only one she didn’t cry. “It was amazing,” Todd said, “until it wasn’t.”
As Jennifer’s once-optimistic prognosis became progressively more grim, Matthew was thriving in Erie. Then, one night in December, Emily Matson took her dogs for a walk and FaceTimed a friend, panning over to Matthew, whose face was covered with chocolate sauce. Not long after, she went for another walk and was struck by a train. The coroner ruled her death a suicide. A little more than two months later, Schaefer got the call to come home after his mother had taken a turn for the worse. Until then, Jennifer attended almost every Otters game, covered in a blanket to keep from getting too cold and catching a virus. But one weekend, with Erie playing in nearby Brantford, she wasn’t there. She tried to watch the game online but didn’t make it through before falling asleep, which had never happened before.
"I think he’ll excel in all areas. He’ll be a power-play guy. He’ll be a penalty-kill guy. He’ll be on in the last five minutes."- NHL scout on Matthew Schaefer
Three days after that game, Matthew was at her bedside saying his final goodbye. “She fought so hard,” Schaefer said. “You wish you could change it. Sometimes, I get so sad, just wishing she could be here. Just another hug or a chance to go to dinner with her. Just to give her one more big hug and a kiss.”
Before the Hlinka Gretzky Cup final last August, Schaefer visited his mom’s grave and chatted with her. “I told her, ‘Mom, I’m going to go win this tournament for you,’” Schaefer said. “‘I know you can’t be here with me right now, but I know you’re going to be with me, so I’m going to work super hard and make you proud, and we’re going to go and win.’” With the ‘C’ on his chest, he helped Canada to a 2-1 win over Czechia to claim gold. He was the anchor of a blueline that allowed just four goals in five games. It would’ve only been three had the Czechs not scored with nine seconds to go in the final. That came just months after, as an underager, Schaefer won gold at the U-18 worlds.
So it was no surprise Canada chose Schaefer for their squad at the 2025 WJC, despite the fact he had just turned 17 and would be one of the youngest players in the 2025 NHL draft. (And even though, as if he hadn’t dealt with enough, he contracted mono after the Hlinka Gretzky, which kept him out of training camp and the first nine games of the OHL season.)
Among the litany of reasons Canada did so poorly at the WJC was that they couldn’t replace Schaefer after he drove the net and collided with the goalpost with his left shoulder against Latvia in the second game of the event. On Canada’s very first goal of Game 1, Schaefer took a pass from Oliver Bonk, then shook off Bonk, who was tapping his stick for a pass back. Instead, Schaefer made a tape-to-tape cross-ice pass to Gavin McKenna, who scored. The 2025 draft’s No. 1 prospect at the age of 17 feeding the 17-year-old No. 1 prospect in 2026 in a tournament typically dominated by 19-year-olds was the perfect way to start the proceedings. After Schaefer was hurt, Canada couldn’t find anyone to run the power play from the back end. And as it turned out, that was the beginning of the end.
The fractured collarbone required surgery, and it kept him out for the remainder of the season. Had he not been injured, Schaefer would’ve been part of Team Canada again in the spring. Not for the U-18 worlds – though he was still eligible to play there – but for the senior men’s World Championship. “I got an X-ray quickly at the arena, and I was like, ‘Please don’t let it be broken. Let me go back out there and play,’” Schaefer said. “But they were like, ‘No. You’re done.’ I couldn’t even move my shoulder. I felt like I was going to throw up. It hurts, right?”
The injury is not expected to affect Schaefer’s draft status. In a year where the draft “is just OK,” according to talent hawks, other prospects did not do enough to change most scouts’ minds about Schaefer. In Schaefer, they see a defenseman with decent size but with elite skating and hockey sense in all three zones, both with and without the puck. He might not be an elite point producer in the NHL, but his ability to do everything will be his strength at the next level. “Sometimes, when you say a guy is an all-round defenseman, it kind of minimalizes them,” said one scout. “But I think Schaefer will excel in all areas, and he’ll be good offensively. He’ll be a power-play guy. He’ll be a first penalty-kill guy. And he’ll be on the ice in the last five minutes of the game, no matter the situation.”
"My whole style is a sticktap to my mom."- Matthew Schaefer
That is also exactly how Schaefer describes his own game. He loves the comparisons to the likes of Doughty and Makar, but he tries to take a little bit from each of the players he watches and fold in as much as he can from each of them into his game.
One thing is certain: the young man cuts a dashing figure both on and off the ice. When things started getting real, and he had to dress up for his games, Schaefer called on his mother to be his wardrobe consultant. And that’s why, for every game, he eschews the shirt-and-tie look for a snappy turtleneck with a sports jacket. In the winter, he rocks a pea coat, and he doesn’t plan on changing things anytime soon, except on draft day, when he’ll play it safe and go with the standard shirt-and-tie look. “My whole style is a stick tap to my mom,” he said.
And make no mistake, Jennifer will be there on draft day. When Schaefer is taken, it will evoke a flood of memories for him, his father and his brother. “She’d be crying and filled with a lot of emotion,” Schaefer said. “It brings back old memories of her driving me to hockey at seven in the morning, and she’d have my tracksuit ready and would make me a great breakfast. She’d get me all pumped up, and, no matter what, I was coming in with a great game speech from my mom.”
This article appeared in our 2025 Draft Preview issue. Our cover story focuses on the Erie Otters' star defenseman and top draft prospect Matthew Schaefer, who has excelled despite the personal losses of his past. We also include features on other top prospects, including Michael Misa and more. In addition, we give our list of the top-100 prospects heading into the 2025 NHL draft.
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