RALEIGH, N.C. — Time for the Islanders to fight for their season. Again.
As cathartic as Mat Barzal’s double-overtime winner on Saturday was, the Islanders need it to be their version of the Dave Roberts steal.
Which is to say, only the beginning of a comeback that will try to take its next step on Tuesday night in Game 5 against the Hurricanes.
“I said to them, ‘What do you guys want?’ ” coach Patrick Roy recounted Monday. “We can tell you all the stories in the world, all the comebacks, what happened, but now it’s time for them to make their own story. And it’s up to them what they want.”
So far, the story the Islanders have written — in this first-round series and in the season writ-large — is one of getting close and falling short.
They lost 16 times in overtime this year, suffering heartbreaks that would have been unbelievable on a soap opera.
Take out empty-net goals and all three of their losses to Carolina in this series have been by a goal — two in games where the Islanders had the better of play and a third when they held a 3-0 lead.
What they do have going for them entering Game 5, Roy pointed out, is that all year they’ve been a streaky team, which culminated in a run that got them into the playoffs.
“It’s pretty good timing,” he said.
At this point in the series, the Islanders know what they’re getting and what they need to do. There’s no grand changes coming. Both teams are what they are, and the Islanders know they can hang with Carolina, even in the Hurricanes’ building.
But hanging around isn’t good enough.
“It’s just one at a time,” Anders Lee said. “You hear us talk about it, but that’s all we can do. That’s all it is. It’s nothing more about how we’ve been playing or whatever it is, what game should’ve been what. It is what it is. We just have to go win [Tuesday] and put everything on the line again.”
More than just bringing the series back to New York for a Game 6 — one that would come with considerable pressure on Carolina, by the way — a win also prevents the Islanders from contemplating their future for another day.
The core has been around for a long time and put forth an admirable effort to get into the playoffs, but it’s hard to see things looking the same next year without winning at least one playoff series.
“We gotta win this game,” Pierre Engvall told The Post. “Just gotta do everything we can, leave nothing on the table for the game. It’s win or lose. Just gotta get it.”
Get it, and write a different story.
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