And just like that, the Islanders are victors in three of four.
Back to NHL-.500.
Back to feeling good about the way things are going.
And perhaps, finding themselves despite a flood of injuries.
It was 4-2 over the Senators on Thursday night at the Canadian Tire Center, and a winning formula that still depends first on hard-nosed defense and good goaltending is coming into focus, even as the Islanders are still without the entire left side of their blue line.
Grant Hutton and Dennis Cholowski have played well in spelling the regulars, but it is the call-up of Isaiah George — who skated with Noah Dobson on the top pair in just his second NHL game — that has made something click here.
George, taken with the 98th-overall pick in 2022 that was acquired in the draft-floor deal that also sent Alexander Romanov to the Isles, has been a stabilizing force on the back end, playing calm beyond his years.
Nobody should get carried away off two games, but this was as hard a situation as anyone can be thrown into and George has carried himself with incredible poise.
That has transferred onto the rest of a club that was reeling just last week.
The Islanders played this one out patiently, dominating puck possession in the first, leaning hard on Semyon Varlamov in the second and the game sitting at zeroes through its first 35 minutes.
You could attach the “boring” label to these Islanders and it wouldn’t be wrong, but they won’t mind one bit if they are as effective as Thursday.
It was the revamped first line of Anders Lee, Bo Horvat and Jean-Gabriel Pageau — which, by the way, now has more goals than Anthony Duclair, Bo Horvat and Mat Barzal did in one fewer game — that finally broke through.
Lee snapped in the puck off Horvat’s backhand feed from behind the net at 15:49 of the second, continuing a superb start to the year for the captain.
Horvat picked up another assist less than three minutes later when Pageau got behind Ottawa’s defense and scored past Anton Forsberg, a homecoming goal for the former Senator.
Less than three minutes into the third, the fourth line contributed its first goal of the season as Oliver Wahlstrom backhanded in Matt Martin’s rebound — his first goal since Nov. 24, 2023, which, by coincidence, was also in Ottawa.
That goal came on a night when the Islanders finished out a win over the Senators down two defensemen, so it is even more fitting that this one came as they appear to be finding their footing without three blue-liners.
Still, this would not come without some stress.
Nick Jensen spoiled the shutout with a right-circle snipe 7:43 into the third, and seven minutes later, Drake Batherson cut it to 3-2 with a power-play goal in front.
With pressure bearing down on the Islanders at five-on-six in the final minute, though, Horvat sealed the game with an empty-net goal.
These last four games are just a microcosm and an even smaller sample than the first 10 games that caused everybody to question whether the Islanders were headed for the draft lottery.
But even with a long way still to go before the lineup is whole again, things feel entirely different than they did around this team just seven days prior.
That doesn’t mean everything is fixed, and it doesn’t mean that the upcoming five-game trip to western Canada that begins after Saturday’s match at home against the Devils looks any easier.
But the Islanders have some swagger back, and that is not nothing.
