Simon Holmstrom provides a silver lining for Islanders season

The Islanders will take what positives they can get right now, with their season on the cusp of ending after a messy, 7-6 loss in overtime to the Predators on Tuesday.

Simon Holmstrom, who reached 20 goals in a season for the first time with a career-best four-point night on Tuesday, would be somewhere near the top of that list.

“I thought he was our best player tonight,” Jean-Gabriel Pageau said following the game. “He was skating well. Protecting the puck well, winning his battles, and he was competing the whole game. I was happy for him to see a couple go in. He’s working extremely hard.”

On a night when the Islanders looked checked out for the duration, Holmstrom stood out as an exception.

He was a threat on the rush and off the cycle, assisted Maxim Tsyplakov from behind the net and Scott Mayfield shorthanded.

As has been the case all season, his chemistry with Pageau was evident, as he easily finished a backhand feed from No. 44 to score in the second period.

“I will say the Pageau line was really good,” coach Patrick Roy said. “To me, that’s the positive of the game. That line gave us a chance to be in that game. And despite the fact we didn’t have our best night, I thought those guys played really well.”

More and more as this season has progressed, the 23-year-old Swede looks like a key part of the Islanders’ future.

His game has developed far beyond the defense-first style that marked his first two seasons in the league, when the Islanders were frequently imploring Holmstrom to shoot more while lauding his two-way game.

He’s been a fixture in the top six since late February and hasn’t missed a beat, particularly since the Brock Nelson trade, which enabled Holmstrom to pair back up with Pageau as his center.

There’s enough questions around what the Islanders will do this summer that it’s not clear whether Holmstrom will stick in that role next season.

If he’s back on the third line, however, it would be a luxury for the Islanders.

Though the regulation-wins tiebreaker would still technically be in play, the Islanders can be de facto eliminated with a loss to the Rangers on Thursday at UBS Arena.

The Rangers have beaten the Islanders all three times the two teams have played this season, by a combined score of 14-3.