HENDERSON, Nev. – When Matthew Schaefer strides into Mustang Sally’s Diner at 2:03 p.m. on a Wednesday in early September, he is energy personified, all slicked back hair and bold movements, the picture of a kid just turned 19 years old with the world at his feet.

He is running late, so the photo shoot prep happens quickly. Hair, makeup, styled in light jeans cuffed above black-and-white penny loafers, a white button-up shirt open two-thirds of the way down his chest, a white blazer, and sunglasses tinted ochre.

He milks it for all it’s worth, coming out of the makeshift dressing room tap dancing.

“How you doing, bud?” he says to Kimber Auerbach, the New York Islanders senior vice president of communications, producing a smile amused and indulgent in equal measure.

There are few people in this closed-down diner in Henderson, Nevada, a small audience for a person whose reach can extend to millions. Schaefer entered the NHL as a rookie last season and took the League by storm, proving he is as comfortable on the ice as he is on social media as he is crawling on the floor with Matt Martin’s quartet of kids as he is  accepting the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie.

He’s not alone.

Schaefer is at the vanguard of a new generation of NHL players, players who are not afraid to be themselves at the same time that they’re demonstrating their greatness. Where once NHL players might have been taught to defer to their elders, with little space in locker rooms for teenagers and wunderkinds, there is no deferring now.

Not on the ice. Not off it.

“I just want to show people what kind of person I am, I’m not just a boring hockey player,”  Schaefer said. “I have a personality behind me and there’s a lot more than just the hockey  player Matthew Schaefer, there’s Matthew Schaefer.”

There is Schaefer, who won the Calder unanimously as an 18-year-old, putting his name in both the Norris Trophy and Hart Trophy conversations and more than justifying being taken with the No. 1 pick at the 2025 NHL Draft.

“I just want to show people what kind of person I am, I’m not just a boring hockey player. I have a personality behind me and there’s a lot more than just the hockey player.” -- Matthew Schaefer

There is Montreal Canadiens forward Cole Caufield, who scored 51 goals in his fifth NHL season at 25 years old, earning the Lady Byng Trophy and pushing his up-and-coming Montreal Canadiens to the Eastern Conference Final.

There is San Jose Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini, whose picture graces the cover of EA Sports NHL 27, at 20 years old the youngest-ever to get the spot, and who on Friday was named the newest captain of the Sharks. Celebrini is coming off a season in which he nearly dragged his team into the playoffs, finishing fourth in the NHL in points in 2025-26 with 115 (45 goals, 70 assists) in 82 games, 56 points ahead of Will Smith, whose 59 were second on the team.

They are bursting onto the scene, more polished and ready than so many that came before them, prepared not only for what the NHL demands of them on the ice but for what their fans demand away from it, media-savvy Instagram darlings who have their peers clamoring for the next edition of Celebrini and Smith’s endlessly entertaining interactions, the next clip of Schaefer and the Martin brood, the next viral snipe from Caufield.

“I think year after year, you just see a guy or two do it and it just feels like it’s become normal,” Pittsburgh Penguins forward Sidney Crosby said. “And it shouldn’t be, but it has (become normal). There’s just a lot of young players that are ready and they get an opportunity."

“Before you might have a guy who’s young, but maybe with a team’s roster, it doesn’t really fit, and they’re not given necessarily the same opportunity, and I think teams are much quicker to give those young guys a look and give them responsibility early.

“I mean, they’ve just run with it. It’s not something that has been too big for them. They’ve grabbed it, and that’s what makes them who they are.”

The black SUV is speeding along the highway from Henderson to Summerlin, where Celebrini will be shuffled from room to room, meeting the demands of a media that is as focused on him as it is on any of the other stars of the NHL, Crosby or Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon.

But first, he needs to remove the tags from his clothes.

Celebrini, fresh off a plane from San Jose to Las Vegas, had walked into the photo shoot in his best athletic casual: shorts and a T-shirt. He walked out converted, dark heavy pleated slacks under a black-and-white untucked plaid shirt, a hint of white undershirt at the open collar, black loafers on his feet, his vibes James Dean, the tags still attached.

He is less than 24 hours away from the debut of his cover of The Hollywood Reporter, a photo shoot with Belmont Cameli of “Off Campus,” a new vanguard for a League that is suddenly as hot in the media landscape as it ever has been, from the 4 Nations Face-Off to “Heated Rivalry” to “Off Campus,” the latter two hit TV shows that have centered the sport.

There are more ways than ever to see the NHL’s players, more avenues to get a glimpse of them, to witness the pieces of themselves they don’t mind sharing with the world, from the fashions -- upgraded with the elimination of the suit-and-tie dress code at the start of last season -- to the gaming to the partnerships to the friendships.

It has been a revelation, one that many of the youngest in the League have fully embraced.

“Hockey’s never really been the type of sport that football or basketball is, being able to have your own brand and grow it that way,” Caufield said. “But I think slowly people are starting to get to know the player and the person. I think the non-hockey fans are starting to see the personalities that we have in this sport and I think the younger generation is slowly coming to be hockey fans.”

So is this generation showing the NHL, showing hockey, in a more fun light?

“I was gonna say that,” Celebrini jumps in. “I was going to say fun. I do. The previous generations of NHL players, obviously they had fun, but it wasn’t captured. It wasn’t posted on social media. Like the stuff that we get into before games and do, I bet they were doing the same thing, it just wasn’t all over Instagram. I think it’s being shown in more of a (fun) light than what’s happened before.”

It’s something that has struck Celebrini as he has met more and more players in his nascent NHL career, discovering that in players he had long admired, had watched  throughout his life, characters he had never imagined, players funny and outgoing and delightful.

“I do think it’s important that the personalities of hockey players are shown a little bit more,” he said. “I think a lot of it has been kind of tucked away, like hockey hasn’t really been shown. There’s so many amazing guys and great personalities in our game and you never really get to see them.”

"People are starting to get to know the player and the person. I think the non-hockey fans are starting to see the personalities that we have in this sport and I think the younger generation is slowly coming to be hockey fans.”     -- Cole Caufield

It is, perhaps, the Gen Z-ification of the sport. In 2025-26, a whopping 61 percent of the League’s players hailed from a demographic that stretches from the 29-year-olds in the prime of their careers to the 14-year-olds still watching and hoping and practicing "The Michigan" for hours in backyard rinks.

Not so long ago, these new stars of the NHL were those kids, with those dreams. Now they’re proof that they can come true.

“What we do is different than what the kids do, but just making it seem like it’s still that kids’ game that everybody loves, it still can be, because I think the game’s going in that  direction,” Caufield said, of the messages he imparts to those kids he once was.

“The kids are just trying to be those next guys and I think that’s what makes it cool about our generation and the young guys now is everyone’s so good when they come in.”

They’re good. But it’s not only that. It’s that they have the confidence to show it, to know their place in the greater hockey world and to strive to attain it -- no matter their age.

“They’re breaking through much, much more quickly than they used to, and I think it’s great for the sport,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said. “It’s exciting for our future.” 

“I do think it’s important that the personalities of hockey players are shown a little bit  more. I think a lot of it has been kind of tucked away, like hockey hasn’t really been shown. There’s so many amazing guys and great personalities in our game and you  never really get to see them." -- Macklin Celebrini

The doors are open. The players, the teenagers, are streaming in.

“I think times have changed a little bit,” Nashville Predators forward Filip Forsberg said. “In the past, it took a little more to get your chance, but now the guys, like just looking at last year, how do you not play Schaefer and how do you not play Celebrini right away when they’re going to be impact players right away? There’s no point of trying to ease them into it  when they’re clearly ready. And that goes for a lot of guys.”

None of these players are satisfied, despite the accolades, the accomplishments, the awards. There is still so much more to do, to give, to achieve. There is so, so much more. They, after all, have entire careers ahead of them, 10, 12, 20 seasons in which they could continue to rule the NHL.

“It was obviously a great year last year, but I think I still have a lot to prove, a lot of parts of my game that I can better,” Schaefer said. “Every time I step on the ice I want to be dominant, every night.”

It’s a daunting prospect. These are players who have reached impressive heights already, scaled mountains previously reserved for players with more wear and tear, more experience, more dues paid.

“It just shows how the League’s changing: It’s getting younger, faster, and these guys come in and make an impact right away.” Vancouver Canucks forward Brock Boeser said. “I  mean, what Schaefer and Celebrini did, it’s impressive. Like, it’s insane. They’re going to be generational players.”

It might sound like hyperbole. It isn’t.

Because everything is getting bigger in the NHL these days, from followings on social media to zeros on contracts to numbers in audience. Everything is outsized, including Celebrini’s new five-year, $94 million contract, with demand growing on these players to do more and be more and show more.

“The bar just keeps getting raised to another level every year, so that’s something that you  appreciate, something that you love to see,” Vegas Golden Knights forward Mitch Marner said. “I think that’s why these contracts are going up, why they’re getting paid more money,  because of the excitement and everything that’s going on, people watching more and people enjoy the game of hockey more.

“These young kids just keep raising the bar. They want to keep getting better and better. You see what they do day in and day out with their work ethic and how they train. It’s nonstop every day and they just want to be the best.”

They have trained for it, in so many ways. They have spent thousands of hours on ice, worked with skating coaches and skill development coaches, consulted with nutritionists and mental performance experts. They have, also, grown up with a fluency around sharing themselves and their lives and their personalities that Crosby and Co. could not even have  imagined, even as brightly as the lights shined on them during their own teenaged years.

“I marvel sometimes at my interactions with the prospects at the draft, so mature, so kind of adult, ready to come in,” Daly said. “I used to view them as really kids who are starting a long journey, and now we’re dealing with kind of mature adults who are ready to take the next step in their careers, and it’s impressive to see.”

It wasn’t that long ago that Schaefer was sitting in English class, dreaming of the NHL,  scanning social media, looking for clues to his future. He would click on the Islanders page,  knowing they had the top pick in his draft year, trying to glean what he could.

“I wanted to see everything, like the dressing room, what the players do, the facilities, things like that,” Schaefer said. “I feel like people find that super cool when they can see a lot more to the Islanders, things they do and funny content with the guys messing around and being themselves.”

Which, for Schaefer at least, still means being a teenager, albeit one with a very demanding, very high-profile, very full-time job.

“It’s definitely crazy,” he said. “It’s two different lifestyles. One’s being a kid and then one’s being in the NHL.”

It’s why he can take such joy at home, playing dress up, chasing around the Martins’ twin  boys and two girls, pretending to be a monkey, crawling around on the floor. It’s why he can take such joy out in the world, being styled, playing it up, a wink and a sip of a milkshake and a mugging for the camera and the crowd, as he put it, still “immature teenagers that just mess around and have fun.”

“You can’t be all hockey,” he said. “You’ve still got to be the person you are. You’ve got to do the things you love, you’ve got to be the funny person. You can’t change your personality for this different lifestyle because people like you for who you are.”

They like him for being the hockey player Matthew Schaefer, of course. But they like him just as much, if not more, for being himself, for being, well, Matthew Schaefer.

NHL.com Director of Editorial Shawn Roarke, NHL.com Columnist Nick Cotsonika, and NHL.com Senior Writer Dan Rosen contributed to this report.