Islanders can help shepherd Matthew Schaefer into exceedingly rare NHL club

PITTSBURGH — Even now, when it is all but universally expected that any No. 1 overall pick will start off in the NHL, what Matthew Schaefer will do on Thursday night in Pittsburgh is exceedingly rare.

It is conventional wisdom, and it is conventional wisdom for a reason, that forwards develop faster than defensemen. The NHL’s minimum age for the entry-level draft was set at 18 in 1980, and since then, just 10 defensemen have gone first overall. Of that group, just four have played more than 10 NHL games at 18 years old.

Schaefer, barring a total face-plant, will become the fifth, with the Islanders making clear that he will be in the lineup when the season opens against the Penguins, and that he is very much part of the plan this year.

“It’s an adjustment. The NHL, guys are all bigger, faster, stronger than anyone you’ve ever played against,” Gord Kluzak, the first defenseman to go No. 1 overall and start his career at 18, told The Post in a recent phone call. “I was still growing. I was 18. [The Bruins] drafted me at 6-foot-4 and I ended up being 6-5. I was still growing. You’re very young, both physically and emotionally.