Islanders' Brayden Schenn stands up for his new teammates immediately

It was not, Brayden Schenn explained, an attempt to ingratiate himself to a new group. He was not intentionally looking for an opportunity to make a positive first impression.

Instead, the newest Islander was doing what he has always done in a lifetime of hockey.

Which is why, slightly more than 24 hours after being acquired in a trade deadline deal from the Blues, the 17-year veteran skated over to the San Jose Sharks’ bench early in the Islanders’ 2-1 overtime win last Saturday to pass along a message that went something like this:

Do not continue to take liberties with Matthew Schaefer. Because there will be consequences and repercussions if it happens again.

“I try to play the game the right way and take care of teammates,” Schenn said following practice Thursday at Northwell Health Ice Center. “It’s just part of the game. It’s the game within the game; [that’s] what it boils down to. And you have to come in here and fit in with the group and just try to be part of the locker room. So it was really nothing more than that. It’s just more so the game within the game when I did that.”

It was a fleeting moment in a game that spanned 64 minutes and 20 seconds in three periods-plus. A brief instance that happens thousands of times over the course of an NHL season.

But the irony is that Schenn did earn praise from the tight-knit group.

One whose history is that it stands up for one another.

“It shows right away that he wants to be part of it,” Jean-Gabriel Pageau said. “He has our back and we’ll do the same for him.”

Pageau knows of what he speaks. The gritty center fought then-Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba after the latter's hit on Michael Dal Colle, one day after the Islanders acquired Pageau from Ottawa in February 2020.

That the Islanders would lose the contest, 4-3 in overtime, was irrelevant. The germane element is that Pageau left Nassau Coliseum that night having almost immediately become part of the fabric of the organization.

“We want to be one team, one family,” Pageau said. “That’s how I reacted. I wanted to be part of the group and I didn’t do it [just to do it]. It’s just reaction, and that’s [what Schenn did]. He’s always been hard to play against for years and we’re lucky to have him on our side.”

Especially for a group that finds itself in the midst of a playoff race. Entering play Thursday night, the Islanders (37-23-5, 79 points) are third in the Metropolitan Division, three points ahead of Columbus (33-21-10; 76 points), the first team under the Eastern Conference playoff cut line.

So injecting dollops of edge and leadership to a group that has been more than willing to showcase those attributes in the 2025-26 season could be beneficial over the final weeks of the regular season. And perhaps beyond.

Scott Mayfield fought Philadelphia’s Garnet Hathaway in the first period of the Islanders’ 4-3 loss to the Flyers on Oct. 25, in response to a heavy hit Hathaway laid on Casey Cizikas. Anthony Duclair confronted Vegas’ Brayden McNabb immediately after the Golden Knights defenseman dumped Schaefer following a whistle in the Islanders’ 5-4 shootout win on Dec. 10. Eighteen days later, Mathew Barzal slashed the Blue Jackets’ Mason Marchment as retaliation for the left wing’s open-ice trip on Schaefer in the Islanders’ 4-2 loss.

“It’s been going on all season,” Cizikas said. “When you see each other stand up for one another out there, it brings the group closer and that’s the whole key. That’s how you build a culture. That’s how you build a locker room. No matter when it gets tough you know that every single guy in this room has your back.”