Nobody throws parties for NHL-.500.
But the Islanders just might be in the mood after a day that started with good news and ended with a victory.
They can see a healthy team on the horizon, with Mat Barzal, Anthony Duclair and Adam Pelech all being full participants at a morning skate for the first time since getting hurt.
They can see the playoff cutline in their sights, now a point behind a spot and behind the struggling Rangers only due to games in hand, with both teams at 31 points.
The goal has been to tread water until healthy, and after beating the Blackhawks, 5-4, at UBS Arena on Thursday, the Islanders are back at NHL-.500 — the definition of treading water — with wins in three of their past four and a group of injured stars getting close to returning.
That is as good a spot as the Islanders have been in all season.
They may not look a few players away from being a Cup contender, and though the score did not reflect it, the performance Thursday night did not really get going until the third period.
But the standings right now certainly imply the Islanders are a few players away from being a playoff team — and it appears they are getting close to having those players back.
In any case, the way the Isles put the game away in a resounding third period will wash away any worries about a slow start.
After Patrick Roy juggled his lines in the second period, with Bo Horvat between Anders Lee and Pierre Engvall while Max Tsyplakov went back to skating with Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri, the Isles settled their game down.
A pair of long-range, second-period goals from Dennis Cholowski and Simon Holmstrom — the first coming seconds after a power play expired — let the Islanders take a 2-1 lead into the last 20 minutes.
That scenario is awfully familiar to the Islanders and not in a good way.
But the third-period demons did not come out Thursday. Instead, quite the opposite.
The Islanders quickly built on their lead, with Noah Dobson capitalizing on the rush after Nelson won the puck off the wall at the 5:39 mark.
Fifty-seven seconds later, Bo Horvat all but put the game away with a goal off the rush.
On the ice from Long Island
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Just to make the point a little bit more emphatic, Tsyplakov cleaned up a loose puck in front less than two minutes after Horvat’s goal to make it 5-1 — prompting Chicago to pull goalie Arvid Soderblom for Drew Commesso.
After so many stressful third periods, even in games where the Islanders have hung on, this was a happy change of pace, with a late trio of goals from T.J. Brodie and two from Tyler Bertuzzi serving as consolation prizes to make the score look tighter than it was.
After struggling through the first 30 minutes of Tuesday’s loss to the Kings, the Islanders again started the game slowly, ceding zone time throughout the first period.
That was also when the Isles’ penalty kill — which has allowed at least one goal in five of the past six games — struck, with Connor Bedard dancing past a trio of defenders and scoring after Palmieri failed to clear the puck.
The home team was booed into the dressing room after the opening 20 minutes in which they looked like the lesser team throughout.
Some kind of a response was needed and — though it did not light up the scoreboard — the Islanders came up with enough of one to check the night’s most important box.
By the end of the night, the fans who’d booed were doing karaoke to “Piano Man” and giving the Islanders an ovation at the buzzer.
They’ve watched this team tread water for a month.
Now it might finally be starting to swim.
