On Day 1 of the 2025-26 Islanders season, a reporter prefaced a question to Matthew Schaefer by noting that he is part of a new era for the team.

It might have been more accurate to say that Schaefer is the new era of Islanders hockey.

Big picture, those are the stakes for this 18-year-old defenseman one day into his first rookie camp.

Schaefer and the Islanders alike will, rightly, try to push that to one side and focus on the micro.