NHL

RALLY POINTS THINGS IN RIGHT DIRECTION FOR ISLES

In a season that is becoming more and more about next year – and the years after that – even losses can be good things.

While the Islanders certainly weren’t pleased to have dropped their seventh straight, most focused on the third-period comeback in last night’s 5-4 OT loss to Washington at Nassau Coliseum.

“We played with a sense of urgency,” said Jon Sim, who, a week after being waived, tied it at 17:47 of the third. “We have to make baby steps.”

That’s essentially what last night amounted to. And with so many players out with injuries, a team that wasn’t stacked with talent to begin with, they’ll likely have to do that a lot.

A playoff run now little more than a pie-in-the-sky notion, the Isles looked like a team destined to fall for the seventh straight time in regulation, playing against the Alex Ovechkin-led Capitals.

Instead, they stormed back with two in the third, only to see Ovechkin score his second of the night 4:49 into the extra session after the Isles coughed up the puck.

Despite the overall positive tone, not everyone was buying it.

“There’s no solace in a point, not tonight,” Doug Weight said. “Coaches can do that. . . . The point doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s another loss. No one’s feeling sorry for us.”

For the most part, though, both Scott Gordon and his team looked at the fact that the injury-depleted squad that made another call-up yesterday in Ben Walter, actually fought back late in the game – rather than fold as it has so many times already.

They were down by a pair of goals twice, but power play goals by Weight and Park helped get them back in it.

“I think we’ve had enough,” Park said. “We’re looking around, trying to figure out what the answer is.”

cd3;ka-3Which is more difficult for veterans like Weight and Bill Guerin.

“We don’t have the results right now, so we’re trying to build on small things,” Guerin said. “We’re desperate to get out of this.”

dan.martin@nypost.com

Capitals 5 Islanders 4