Islanders grind out ugly win over Lightning to snap losing streak

This was not a pretty win. It was not a particularly emphatic win.

It was not especially entertaining, nor was it even the best hockey the Islanders have played on a homestand where they lost four of their first five games.

All that said, the Islanders did what they had to do and issued a reminder on Tuesday night that, no, they have not forgotten how to win games.

They beat the Lightning 2-1 at UBS Arena to snap Tampa’s seven-game win streak and their own three-game losing streak, grinding out the sort of ugly victory that everyone in hockey loves to wax poetic on.

This was a low-event game where time came and went. At points, you could have mistaken it for mid-September given the sparse crowd inside UBS.

The Islanders did not play their best hockey, they were rarely up ice and the top line had one of its worst games of the season. You would be right to call it a character win.

Still, two positive trends — which have held even amid the losses — continued. This time, they were enough for two points.

First, the Islanders were good in their own end, limiting the Lightning every bit as much as they limited themselves.

Second, Ilya Sorokin was his usual brilliant self, standing up to every breakdown, including an acrobatic denial of Anthony Cirelli in alone on his backhand during the second period.

The Islanders have felt — not wrongly — that they’ve gotten unlucky during this homestand, losing games in which they had the better of the play.

This was something of an evening out, though they were by no means dominated by Tampa.

Bo Horvat’s goal just 55 seconds into the second period — Horvat breaking a four-game goalless streak by putting in his own rebound from Max Shabanov’s feed — was all that stood between the Islanders and Lightning entering the last 20 minutes.

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Anthony Duclair, missing in action for much of this season, ended up putting some more separation between them.

After a burst of speed to break the puck out all by himself, Duclair ended his shift by burying Cal Ritchie’s backhand feed at 5:30 of the third, his first goal in 14 games giving the Islanders a badly-needed cushion.

With Sorokin looking completely airtight, Dominic James finally broke through for Tampa to make it a 2-1 game with 3:34 to go.

With pressure bearing down nonstop, Sorokin — superlative throughout the final 20 minutes — had one last feat to perform.

The Islanders did not give him much help, the Lightning owned the low slot and the home plate area around the net. It did not matter. Not with Sorokin playing like this.

At this stage of the season, and with the miseries of the last 10 days for the Islanders, it’s easy to forget that they are in the middle of a playoff race.

But they woke up Tuesday just two points off a wild-card spot and just three points off third place in a tightly-packed Metropolitan Division.

In that environment, they could not afford to let themselves fall further out of the race.

There was no choice but to make lemonade out of lemons, even against a Lightning team that is atop the East, even on a night where the Islanders did not have their best.

That is what a character win looks like.