The Islanders came into Thursday needing to generate more puck pressure and forechecking, crash the net more often and take some of the pressure off Ilya Sorokin’s shoulders.

Mostly, though, they just needed two points to break a three-game losing streak.

It wasn’t quite as pretty as they would have liked, but the Islanders overcame a mess of penalties and a blown lead to earn a 3-2 win over the Senators and boost their record to 3-2-1.

At the start of the third period, it looked as though the Islanders were about to dither away the lead.

They’d already allowed Ottawa to tie the game at two, blowing an early lead, and had taken two penalties in the last minute of the second period to hand the Senators a four-on-three.

But, with some desperation and help via Ottawa’s sloppiness, the Islanders managed to kill off the penalties.

And just a few minutes later, Noah Dobson fired them back into the lead with a breakaway one-timer from the high slot.

For the last 13:15 of the game — leaning more on Sorokin than they perhaps would have liked — the Islanders managed to hold onto the lead, crucially staying out of the penalty box as they did so.

Those two penalties at the end of the second, by the way, were the Isles’ sixth and seventh of the period and their eighth and ninth of the evening.

To put it kindly: That is a bad way to try and win a hockey game.

The Islanders had already allowed a goal at four-on-three 6:52 into the second, with Claude Giroux’s wrist shot beating Sorokin clean.

A little over five minutes later, Jakob Chychrun tied the game at two with a shot through traffic, but the night changed in between the two goals, when Ottawa’s Erik Brannstrom was stretchered off after appearing to hit his head on the ice following a hit from Cal Clutterbuck.

The stoppage in play to load Brannstrom onto the stretcher lasted over five minutes and took the air out of UBS Arena.

A game the Islanders had dominated early started to turn the other way.

The first strike came just 2:41 into the night, when Bo Horvat converted on the power play, cleaning up a rebound from the low slot.

Clutterbuck doubled the lead 13:05 into the first after Casey Cizikas won the puck on a forecheck behind the net and fed Clutterbuck in the slot.

The good thing for the Islanders: the third period looked more like the first.

Both the Islanders and Senators came into Thursday with .500 records and early losing streaks in hand, so this game would get one team out of a spiral.

Ottawa losing on the same day that center Shane Pinto was suspended 41 games for unspecified violations of the league’s gambling rules, however, does put the Islanders’ issues into perspective.

Against an Ottawa team with a high-end top-six that looked bound to give them trouble, the Islanders instead took the game to their opposition.

The first line of Anders Lee, Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal generated regular pressure and got on the cycle without issue.

After a trio of losses in which the Islanders got taken out of their game and relied on quick-strike moments for offense more than sustained pressure, that was a necessary turnaround.

Really, so was the mere act of getting two points.