Lou Lamoriello seemed genuinely bewildered by the question.

It was nearly four weeks ago in Tampa, and the Islanders’ general manager had been asked, given how little Semyon Varlamov had played down the stretch, whether looking to trade him at the deadline might have made sense.

He laughed.

“Where did that question come from?” he asked. “It was never even a thought in our mind, I guess is the best way I can answer that question.”

In each of the past two seasons, Varlamov’s name has come up as a potential trade chip, and it’s not hard to see why.

Ilya Sorokin is locked in as the Islanders’ No. 1 goaltender. Varlamov, who turns 35 today, carries a $5 million cap hit. His contract expires at the end of this season. That is generally enough of a reason to start fielding calls.

Lamoriello, though, seemed never to have considered the possibility (or had quite a poker face). The reason why is opposite the Islanders in their first-round series.

Frederik Andersen, to be fair, did not have the same kind of solid perch atop the depth chart for Carolina as does Sorokin for the Islanders. But going into Game 1, you would have expected Andersen, who started a plurality of games for Carolina during the regular season, to be in nets.

And you would have been wrong.

Due to a combination of illness and injury, it instead has been Antti Raanta starting for Carolina in all five games, and it would be a surprise to see Rod Brind’Amour go elsewhere on Friday night after Raanta has given the Hurricanes five solid outings.

This is why trading Varlamov was always a nonstarter. The Islanders depend too heavily on their goaltending to risk putting themselves in a position to be unable to withstand something happening to Sorokin, especially when the organizational depth chart at the position does not have a ready-made replacement for the No. 2 spot.

Still, it is entirely possible Varlamov, who played in just three games (two starts) after the trade deadline, has made his last appearance in an Islanders uniform.

If Sorokin stays healthy, it would be shocking to see anyone else in the net for the Islanders during the playoffs. And though Varlamov told The Post earlier this season he wants to stay with the Isles in unrestricted free agency, doing so almost certainly would require accepting a large pay cut and the reality of starting 20-30 games per season when he still is good enough to start for some teams.

(One of those teams, by the way, could be the Hurricanes — Varlamov’s .913 save percentage this season was better than what Andersen, Raanta or Pyotr Kochetkov put up).

Varlamov, remember, did not lose the top spot on the depth chart — Sorokin won it last season by playing so well that a change was undeniable.

Sorokin did not start 60 games this season because the Islanders had an inadequate backup — he did so because he was too good to sit down the stretch when they needed to win every night.

The Islanders easily could have netted an asset of some kind in exchange for Varlamov, which is no small deal for an organization about to go its third straight draft without a first-round pick, and freed up some cap room as well.

But that was never going to be worth the risk.

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Maybe this is all rendered moot because the Islanders will have last change in Game 6.

But the best response to Lane Lambert splitting Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat late in Game 5 to force Brind’Amour to choose which line to match up against would have been to go with answer C: Neither.

Brock Nelson’s line has been, by some margin, the Islanders’ best in this series. That line deserved Brind’Amour’s attention, not least because it was responsible for both of the Islanders’ five-on-five goals in the game.

Nelson, Pierre Engvall and Kyle Palmieri have outscored the ‘Canes 5-1 in this series while on the ice with an expected goals percentage approaching 60.

Especially if Lambert keeps his two superstars apart, that is the line Carolina needs to worry about on Friday.

Because the Hurricanes are one win away from beating the Islanders despite having been outscored at even strength, we asked Elias Sports Bureau how often a team has won a series in such circumstances, assuming it was at least somewhat rare.

Turns out, not at all.

It happened twice in last season’s first round, when the Rangers beat the Penguins and when the Lightning beat the Maple Leafs.

Twice per playoffs is the going rate in recent seasons: Teams achieved the feat the same number of times in each season since 2019.