ST. LOUIS — The night before he made his NHL debut, Matthew Schaefer followed Ryan Pulock back to his hotel room after dinner.
They were talking about nothing and everything, the 31-year-old Pulock asking the 18-year-old Schaefer how excited he was to play his first game the next night.
Schaefer, who is thinking about getting a tattoo, then asked Pulock about his tattoo: a Maple Leaf over his heart with two hockey sticks. He has it in memory of his brother, Brock, who died at 13 years old after injuries sustained in a car crash. Ryan was in the backseat.
He’s told the story publicly before, but not often. Schaefer didn’t know it. Ryan, well aware of Schaefer’s own experience with losing his mother, recounted it.
