March is over, but the madness isn’t. They’re talking playoffs on Long Island, and the crazy thing is the Islanders seem destined to end their five-year postseason drought.
Chants of “We want playoffs” echoed throughout the Nassau Coliseum as the Islanders continued their climb up the standings with a 4-2 win over the Lightning Saturday night in front of a rowdy crowd of 16,170.
“They’ve endured some tough years. They’re obviously hungry for some playoffs, as well are we,” center Josh Bailey said. “A bunch of us have been here a few years now. It’s never fun to go home early and watch the playoffs on TV. It’s miserable. All those years of watching them, this year it’s going to help motivate us.”
The Isles kept pace with the suddenly surging Rangers for the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs, moved to within two points of sixth-place Ottawa and are now three points clear of the ninth-place Devils after recording their third straight victory at home and sixth win in their last eight contests (6-1-1).
“The coaching staff from the beginning said they think we have a playoff team and we know we do,” left wing Matt Martin said. “We just got to keep on rolling.We control our own destiny here. We’re not looking at teams below us, we’re looking at teams ahead of us, and we’re trying to catch them.”
Michael Grabner, Andrew MacDonald, Martin and Bailey — a player from three different lines and a defenseman — each scored and Evgeni Nabokov was stout in net yet again for the Islanders (19-16-4, 42 points) with 19 saves.
“We need that,” Martin said. “We have scoring all through the lineup now, we’re getting goals from different guysand that’s what we’re going to need going forward.”
Martin got the game-winner with just 6:26 remaining on what seemed like a harmless play. He entered the Lightning zone on his own, angled between the circles and took a long wrist shot through traffic that beat unsuspecting Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop, who was shielded by Casey Cizikas.
“I just wanted to throw it in there and hope for something good to happen,” Martin said. “I wasn’t expecting for it to necessarily go in, but Casey did a good job moving his legs and getting to the net.”
The Islanders never trailed, but twice blew one-goal leads. They only received one power-play opportunity and were on the short end of several questionable calls. Yet they left with two points anyway.
“We’re finding a way, finding a way to compete, finding a way to get two points,” coach Jack Capuano said.
They may find themselves in the playoffs as a result.
zbraziller@nypost.com