Two of the NHL’s best young defensemen showed off a different side of their games on Saturday night.
Rather than creating offense, Matthew Schaefer and Luke Hughes exchanged punches late in the second period of their heated Metropolitan Division rivalry matchup between the New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils.
The two were the main event of a fracas that saw five separate roughing penalties called as tempers flared around New York’s net.
Matthew Schaefer and Luke Hughes exchange punches
The conflict started in front of the Islanders’ net after Logan Stanley slashed Devils forward Nico Hischier and tussled with defenseman Brett Pesce. Attention then turned behind the net, where Schaefer and Hughes turned up the temperature to 11 as they threw gloved haymakers at each other’s faces, and Schaefer ended up on top of Hughes in a pile-up.
“I don’t know,” Hughes said. “He just had my visor, and we just started…it doesn’t really matter. I think hockey is an emotional sport, and I wouldn’t call that a fight at all. Neither of us had our gloves off. It’s part of the game, two competitive guys.”
Schaefer, who scored his fifth goal of the season in the game, shared a very similar take on the play.
“I don’t know,” Schaefer said. “I think it was just kind of roughing up a bit. Just kind of grabbing each other.”
The heated disagreement is very out of character for both players, as neither the 19-year-old Schaefer nor the 23-year-old Hughes has ever gotten into an NHL fight. Schaefer maxed out at 38 penalty minutes in his rookie 2025-26 campaign, while Hughes has never recorded more than 32 penalty minutes in a season during his parts of five years with the Devils.
At the time of the roughhousing, the Islanders were ahead 4-2 after two second-period goals from Simon Holmstrom and Viktor Eklund. Those good times didn’t last as the Devils controlled the third period, getting goals from Luke Evangelista and Dougie Hamilton to send the game to overtime.
In the extra frame, Hughes got the last laugh over Schaefer, making a stick-check on the teenage phenom that sent him careening into the boards. The elder Hughes brother on the Devils, Jack, then picked up the puck and scored on a breakaway at the other end.
Jack Hughes scores overtime winner for Devils against Islanders
Schaefer was infuriated by the officiating on the sequence leading up to the game-winning goal, suggesting Hughes had fouled him. He snapped his stick over the Islanders’ goal frame as he screamed at the nearest referee.
Matthew Schaefer snaps stick on Islanders goal post
Hughes refused to take a victory lap postgame when asked if the final play meant any more, given that it came at Schaefer’s expense.
“No, for us it’s about the win and the two points, morale,” Hughes said. “We got killed the last two times playing here, and for us to come back, fight, and claw our way back is big for our group. Just a big morale win, and we’ll take the two points, too.”
The Devils have won four games in a row and sit solidly second in the Metro, with the Islanders seven points behind them in fifth place. Hughes is playing a big part in that success, leading all New Jersey defenders in scoring with 11 points (6g, 5a) in 17 games.
