NHL

ISLES BANK ON PLAYOFF SPOT

Bill Guerin watched from San Jose a year ago as the Islanders made a mad dash for the playoffs at the end of the regular season, qualifying by beating the Devils in their last game.

“It was a nice story,” said Guerin, now the team’s captain, of the Isles’ four-game winning streak in their final four games, which was coupled with a dizzying array of losses from their closest competitors and allowed them to capture the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference.

“It was pretty remarkable,” Guerin said. “They were under the gun and it was good for the organization. It worked out well for them.”

Still, as the team opens the second half of the season following last weekend’s All-Star break, it’s not something he wants to witness in person.

“That’s not our goal,” Guerin said as the team returned to practice yesterday in Syosset. They host the Senators tonight at the Coliseum, where they have lost four straight. “We want to win our division and secure as high a seed as possible. We don’t want to come in under the radar.”

They enter tonight’s match tied for the final playoff spot with the Rangers, but also only trailing the Atlantic Division-leading Devils and Flyers by five points.

“With our division, who knows what’s going to happen?” Guerin said. “But we don’t have a lot of time [left] for things not to go well.”

Something that Ted Nolan is aware of. He saw first hand how close the Isles came to missing the postseason.

“I’m not too sure if that will ever happen again,” Nolan said. “All the stars had to line up for us to get in last year. Hopefully, we never have to do that again.”

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Rick DiPietro, who’ll play tonight, got the day off yesterday after playing in Sunday’s All-Star Game in Atlanta. Nolan said his goalie suffered no ill effects from “tweaking” his hip in the skills competition Saturday . . . Nolan liked what he saw from Blake Comeau before the break and said he will see more ice time. Yesterday he skated on a line with Josef Vasicek and Miro Satan.

dan.martin@nypost.com