{"id":656720,"date":"2026-03-15T05:32:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/656720\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T05:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:32:19","slug":"islanders-simon-holmstrom-brayden-schenn-decision-pays-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/656720\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders’ Simon Holmstrom-Brayden Schenn decision pays off"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most of his NHL career, Simon Holmstrom\u2019s success has been tied at the hip to Jean-Gabriel Pageau.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, the winger seems to have an innate chemistry with Pageau as his center \u2014 something the Islanders have been happy to indulge, but a fact that\u2019s sometimes prevented Holmstrom from moving up in the lineup, and which has sometimes stopped coach Patrick Roy from tinkering with his lineup the way he might like.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why moving Holmstrom up to play on Brayden Schenn\u2019s line raised an eyebrow ahead of Saturday\u2019s 3-2 win over the Flames<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why it\u2019s extra meaningful for Holmstrom to have scored twice in a strong all-around performance with Schenn on his left side instead of Pageau.<\/p>\n

\"NewSimon Holmstrom celebrates after one of his two first-period goals during the Islanders\u2019 3-2 win over the Flamess on March 14, 2026 at UBS Arena. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cJust from watching him the past couple games, obviously he\u2019s very talented at both ends of the ice. Honestly, I had no idea what type of player he was when I walked in here,\u201d Schenn told The Post. \u201cHe surprised me a lot. Very talented, very skilled with the puck, very good both ends of the ice and he can skate. Definitely a 200-foot player and fun to play with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schenn, who already bought Holmstrom a Rolex watch as payment for taking the No. 10 \u2014 Holmstrom switched to 92 \u2014 got him another gift Saturday with a feed off the rush for his first goal.<\/p>\n

His second, ironically, came from Pageau when the Islanders were shorthanded late in the first \u2014 Roy didn\u2019t split the pair on the penalty kill \u2014 but there was plenty to be encouraged about with the Schenn-Holmstrom duo, whose line was completed by Anthony Duclair, at 5-on-5 as well.<\/p>\n

\"OlliBrayden Schenn fights for possession during the Islanders\u2019 March 14 win against the Flames. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAnthony Duclair had a good game, I love the way he played in his own zone,\u201d Roy said. \u201c\u2026 Simon had a nice play with Schenner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Realistically, Roy will probably end up going back to Pageau and Holmstrom at some point before the playoffs, if only because the safe bet all year has been that the lines will change, and because the duo is so reliable.<\/p>\n

Knowing he doesn\u2019t need to be wedded to that option, though, could be key going into the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely helps to build chemistry with the guys you\u2019re playing with,\u201d Holmstrom said. \u201cI think everyone here, we have such a tight group, we can all play together. So I don\u2019t think it makes that big of a difference [to move things around], but takes some time to develop chemistry as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday was David Rittich\u2019s first career win against the Flames, the team he spent the first five seasons of his career with.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout time,\u201d Rittich said. \u201cI know my record against them since I left Calgary, it\u2019s not great. It was terrible. So I\u2019m glad I finally got a win against them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most of his NHL career, Simon Holmstrom\u2019s success has been tied at the hip to Jean-Gabriel Pageau.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":656721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,1301,5226,5225,293,5228,5227,155302,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-656720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-nhl","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-simon-holmstrom","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116231559358921368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}