Islanders’ much-needed win overshadowed by slew of injury worries

BUFFALO — A day after Halloween, the Islanders nearly suffered a Nightmare on Perry Street. 

They escaped Buffalo with a badly needed 4-3 win over the Sabres but not without losing a trio of players in KeyBank Center, which felt at times like their own House of Horrors. 

The news of Mat Barzal having traveled back to Long Island with an upper-body injury came down in the morning, then Adam Pelech and Mike Reilly both got hurt during the game, with Reilly suffering a potentially serious injury when appearing to hit his head on the ice after a second-period hit from Jordan Greenway. 

There was no update on either afterward, though Pelech was seen holding his jaw.

Reilly will travel back to New York with the team, and coach Patrick Roy was still miffed with the no-call on Greenway after the play was initially assessed a five-minute major. 

Still, this was a gritty and hard-earned victory, with the Islanders playing the second half of the game with just four defensemen and breaking a morale-sucking three-game losing streak. 

“It was gutsy,” an exhausted Noah Dobson told The Post after seeing 24:29 of ice. “A lot of guys dug in. Forwards did a great job coming back. A lot of sacrifice, blocked shots. It was good to see the team rally. That’s obviously a huge win.” 

The Islanders survived a Barzal-less span two seasons ago, mostly on the back of Ilya Sorokin’s brilliance down the stretch, to get into the playoffs after all hope looked lost.

They also survived a slew of injuries to their defense during the first half of last season to ultimately make the playoffs, though that did not come without some serious lows that culminated when Lane Lambert was fired. 

Now, they might get both at the same time, and that is in the context of the Islanders coming into Friday at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. 

They will need to survive again — with goaltending, defense and winning ugly — until Barzal, Anthony Duclair and their defensemen are back, whenever that might be, otherwise their playoff chances could be shot by Christmas. 

So that’s what this Friday night on the banks of Lake Erie was all about.

The Islanders, unlike much of the season so far, did not have most of the possession and could not talk about all their great chances. Also unlike most of the season so far: They won, and in regulation to boot, earning two points that probably mean more to the group’s collective mentality than they will in the standings. 

“We needed this game,” Roy said. 

That came largely as a product of Max Tsyplakov’s best game yet as an NHLer, with the Russian taking things into his own hands during an injury-filled second period. 

Tsyplakov broke a 1-1 tie by dressing down Buffalo defenseman Connor Clifton and cutting to the net 5:25 into the period.

Then at the 12:20 mark, he orchestrated a power-play goal with a gorgeous backhand feed to Kyle Palmieri, who easily put the puck in the net at the backdoor. 

This was a needed performance from the lone player in the Islanders lineup who wasn’t here last season, and someone they will need to step up more in the coming weeks. 

“He’s been confident from the first day,” Roy said. “He’s, what, 25 or 26? He’s very ready for this. I think he wants to make this adventure a good one.” 

It looked like the Islanders might have quelled any potential momentum for the Sabres when Sorokin stopped Jason Zucker on a penalty shot early in the third, but just 26 seconds later, the lead was cut to 3-2 anyway — by Zucker, who deflected Tage Thompson’s shot. 

The new-look top line of Anders Lee, Bo Horvat and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, however, came up with an insurance goal when Horvat collected a missed shot from Lee behind the net and fed Pageau, who tapped in the puck as Devon Levi was caught out of position. 

It was the second goal of the night for the trio after Horvat lit the lamp in the first period, and it ended up being crucial after Owen Power got a goal back for the Sabres at five-on-six. 

“We didn’t get flustered when they made it 3-2,” Horvat said. “We kept pressing. When we had guys go down, [we] never stopped. It’s a lot of character in this room to step up in different ways and obviously to have Barzy go down and Duke and guys getting injured, different guys stepping up at different times.

“It says a lot about our group.” 

Nightmare averted.