Islanders slip past Hurricanes thanks to dominant second period

It’s been a long time since the Islanders played a period as good as the middle 20 minutes on Saturday.

It’s been a long time since the Islanders had a win as good as the 4-3 victory over the Hurricanes they earned at UBS Arena.

“We knew we had to bounce back, we weren’t good enough the other night [a 5-2 loss to the Kraken],” Ryan Pulock said after the Islanders became the final team in the Eastern Conference to reach double-digit victories, yet somehow climbed — at least for the moment — within one point of a playoff spot. “It was probably our worst game of the year. So we knew we had to bounce back and I think every guy in here came to work today and did a really good job.”

The pattern of the last few weeks has been that the Islanders have won on Saturdays and lost on every other day of the week, so the jury is out on whether or not this represents a real step forward.

Nevertheless, after a disastrous showing Thursday that carried over into the first period against the ’Canes, the Islanders were bordering on crisis mode if they could not pull themselves together — and that is just what they did in a four-goal outburst in the second.

It was, in particular, the Islanders’ response to Andrei Svechnikov’s second power-play goal of the night — which gave Carolina a 2-1 lead after Anders Lee was mistakenly called for a high stick on Martin Necas — that the team can hang its hat on.