Some style points would’ve been nice.
But the Islanders will happily sacrifice those at the altar of victory.
It became clear pretty early on Saturday, even as the Islanders jumped out to a two-goal lead over the Canadiens, that it was going to be that kind of night.
The Islanders played a choppy game, making it a little too close for comfort against an opponent that is inferior on paper and came into Saturday off a bad loss.
There wasn’t much ice for either side, in a continuation of Thursday’s loss to the Blues.
Still, it went into the third period tied and after those 20 minutes, the Islanders exited with a 4-3 shootout win over the Habs, their second win of the season, with Noah Dobson saving the Isles after they’d let an early 2-0 lead and a late 3-2 lead go to waste.
Does it answer the questions lingering about this team, which hasn’t looked especially consistent in any area aside from goaltending through five games?
Not really.
And after Anthony Duclair exited the game in the third period, going down and not putting any weight on his right leg as he was helped off, it’s hard to feel great.
But a win does buy a night’s worth of breathing room for the Islanders, who look very much in the process of figuring things out as they go.
After a sloppy second period in which Logan Mailloux’s goal 59 seconds into the frame tied things at two and the Islanders spent their best stretch of hockey playing with their food — at one point spending 3:43 straight in the offensive zone but generating just one shot on goal inside of 30 feet — that was as much as they could have asked for.
Duclair’s injury cast a pall over the third period, but the Islanders managed to keep their feet on the gas and put together what was, if you could look through the injury fog, their best 20 minutes of the night — skating hard and taking some of the shots they’d passed up earlier.
Finally, one of those paid off when Jean-Gabriel Pageau picked Adam Pelech’s feed out of the air, got on the rush and created a rebound for Lee to slide into the net at 15:24 of the third.
But it wouldn’t be enough on its own, as Cole Caufield tied the game with 2:10 left on a left-circle shot that trickled through Semyon Varlamov.
After losing their first two overtime games, the Islanders saw the door swing open when Kirby Dach high-sticked Kyle Palmieri with 3:33 to go in the extra period, but would only get consecutive posts from Noah Dobson and Kyle Palmieri at four-on-three.
Finally, in a marathon shootout, Varlamov had the better of Cayden Primeau, stopping Mailloux in the ninth round to seal it.
Despite neither side looking particularly crisp, the Islanders did quickly put end to one negative story off the first four games, ending an 0-for-9 run on the power play at the first chance of asking with Mat Barzal feeding Bo Horvat in the slot 14:32 into the night.
Kyle Palmieri doubled the lead off the rush just over two minutes later.
But getting both special teams to click at once was too tall an order.
After Max Tsyplakov took a high-sticking penalty with just under nine seconds left in the first, Cole Caufield converted before the period was over to cut the lead in half.
Then came Mailloux’s goal, right at the start of the second, with the Islanders looking out of place in their own zone as the defenseman strolled down the slot and lit the lamp for the first time in the NHL.
A win is a win is a win — that’s the motto for the Islanders, and missions A, B and C on Saturday were avoiding a fourth loss in five games.
But as for the big-picture calculus, well, this still looks like a team with work to do.
