Islanders nip Bruins despite getting outplayed for much-needed win

BOSTON — The Rorschach test after Thursday is much the same as it was heading into Thursday.

Outside observers saw a 2-1 win over the Bruins, in which the Islanders were badly outshot and outplayed for much of the evening — with Ilya Sorokin’s 37 saves bailing out the rest of the team — as more evidence the Isles ought to sell at the trade deadline.

Players and coach Patrick Roy saw a team doing what it needed to do and pulling out two points to prove one can’t write off the Islanders just yet, despite a seven-point gap to the nearest playoff team in the standings.

And general manager Lou Lamoriello, the only one whose opinion matters? Well, he’s fallen on the optimistic side of this question at every time since the Islanders stopped winning playoff series in 2021. But as the rest of the league waits with bated breath to see whether this time is different, the Islanders probably didn’t give the other 31 general managers much help on Thursday night.

“We stood our ground,” Anders Lee told The Post after the Islanders snapped a four-game losing streak in what was, essentially, a makeup game from the hockey gods following two tough losses. “There’s a swagger, there’s a confidence, there’s an energy and a feeling when things are going right. You really gotta sometimes manufacture it a little bit when you’re on a little bit of a skid and you want to end it. Sometimes, you gotta pretend a little bit and fake it till you make it.”

If the facade of a playoff race still is on, it’s Sorokin who the Islanders have to thank. Two nights after being pulled in a 5-1 loss to the Rangers in what looked like a crisis of confidence, the goalie was stone cold and near-unbeatable on the road.