BOSTON — Lately, it seems as though the Islanders are able to do this every three or four games.
In a way, that’s what makes it all the more frustrating that they’ve had such a terrible past four weeks. They know they are capable of playing like they played on Sunday against the Bruins, going into a playoff team’s building, controlling much of the game and walking out with a 5-4 overtime victory after Bo Horvat’s game-winner.
“We’re just f–king pumped,” captain Anders Lee said after notching goals 17 and 18 on his season. “Pumped up there. In some ways a touch relieved. We worked for that one tonight.”
Encouraging as it was to see the Islanders break their three-game losing streak and play a straight-line game in which they tilted the TD Garden ice in the right direction for much of the evening, though, the issue at this point in the season is not whether the Islanders can play a good game.
It’s whether they can play multiple games in a row like this. And the more they struggle to do that, the more good games in a row they need to climb out of their hole.
Even with the injured list growing — Isaiah George (suspected concussion) joined Simon Holmstrom (upper body) — the Islanders put together the kind of game that could be used as a springboard.
They responded after early adversity, they played well enough on special teams to win, and more top-heavy forward lines with Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri, split up for the first time all season, showed good chemistry.
The defense also played perhaps its most shot-first game of the season with great results, including Ryan Pulock’s first three-point night since Nov. 26, 2022.
“Since I’ve been here, it was probably his best game,” coach Patrick Roy said of No. 6.
Nonetheless, the Islanders were still hanging on tight to a 3-2 lead entering the third after Justin Brazeau pulled the Bruins within one at 10:18 of the second.
Within five minutes of the third period, the Islanders and Bruins had traded goals, with Lee and David Pastrnak both taking advantage of defensive-zone turnovers to make it 4-2, then 4-3.
With the Bruins pouring down pressure, Pastrnak struck again with 7:16 to go, converting Pavel Zacha’s feed to the back post by beating Alexander Romanov to the spot.
It had all the makings of a game the Islanders would blow, but playing three-on-three hockey for the first time in a month, Horvat got up ice and finished a breakaway to give the Islanders just their second overtime win of the year — and avoid what would have been a calamity of a loss.
The Islanders had fought back quickly after losing a challenge on Cole Koepke’s goal 3:01 into the game, scoring three straight goals, including Horvat at four-on-five during the delay of game penalty induced by the unsuccessful challenge.
“We picked up where we left off from what we felt was some good hockey in the Toronto games [both losses],” Lee said. “Didn’t deviate, didn’t do too much, didn’t grip the stick. Sometimes when you’re pressing, the way things have been going, you gotta just settle in and play. I thought we settled in and played a hard game tonight.”
Indeed, this was North-South hockey — the kind Roy has been saying he wants the Islanders playing — and it produced a game in which the Islanders dominated the shot and chance counts.
“I thought we threw a lot more pucks at the net tonight,” Horvat said. “Creating those dirty chances, rebounds, it’s not always gonna be pretty. I thought we did a good job of getting traffic and bodies toward the net.”
That’s all fine and good.
Now can they do it in Vegas on Thursday and in Utah on Saturday? How about over the two-week homestand after that?
If so, then there is a conversation to be had.
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