The Islanders’ playoff odds have never been better.

It will still take a strong five weeks to close out the season, but the Islanders could not have dreamed of a better run of events to happen over the last three weeks. And in the biggest game to date, the Islanders beat the Sabres 3-2 on Tuesday night in what might have been their best victory of the season.

This was a complete and sustained effort in a moment that called for such, and a final 30 minutes in which the Islanders dominated a team nipping at their heels in the playoff race, climaxing with Hudson Fasching’s winner and culminating with UBS Arena reaching a rare crescendo.

After a long period when things looked completely tangled between the teams involved, the race is starting to come more and more clearly into focus.

The Penguins and Sabres still have three games in hand over the Islanders, but after Tuesday, the Isles hold a six-point lead over the Sabres and have a crack at Pittsburgh on Thursday.

If they can win that game, it would go a long way towards not just boosting the Islanders’ playoff odds, but boosting their chances of avoiding the big bad Bruins in the first round.

That this is the conversation surrounding the Islanders less than three weeks after Mathew Barzal suffered a suspected knee injury in Boston, sidelining him for the foreseeable future, is nothing short of remarkable.

But since then, the Isles have gotten back to the roots that made them a Stanley Cup contender a couple of seasons ago, making themselves hard to play against with structured, defensive hockey.

On Tuesday, though, it was a sustained offensive push that won the Islanders the game.

That culminated in a high-intensity third period of firewagon hockey, which started with Josh Bailey’s backhand into an open net off a loose puck just 1:51 in to give the Islanders a 2-1 lead.

Kyle Okposo would quickly come back to tie the game with a wrist shot that made its way through traffic at 4:59.

And just as everyone was still digesting that, the Islanders retook the lead as a pass from Bailey hit off Hudson Fasching’s knee and went in at the 7:37 mark.

Initially waved off for a kick, a lengthy review found that the puck went off his knee, not his skate, thus counting as a good goal.

Instead of sitting back and defending, the Islanders kept the pressure on.

It turned out to be the right call as the Sabres struggled to generate much offense at five-on-five.

When they pulled the goalie, the Islanders dug in, defended and leaned on Ilya Sorokin successfully.

After a tight first period, Dylan Cozens got the Sabres on the board 5:00 into the second as Buffalo won a puck battle to give Cozens the space he needed to send a wrister past Sorokin.

The Islanders, though, fought right back.

Casey Cizikas, who played the role of energizer bunny on the third line all night, converted a feed from Fasching behind the net to tie the game at 12:38, and for the rest of the second period, the Islanders buzzed around Buffalo’s net to no avail.

It would take until the third to seal this one.

Nothing is guaranteed until the Isles can see an X next to their names in the standings, and that is still a long way off.

Thursday’s match in Pittsburgh is still vital, and everything can still change on a dime.

Right now, though, you wouldn’t bet against the Islanders to make the playoff field.

And with Barzal expected to return towards the end of the season, you probably wouldn’t want to see them on the other side if they get there.