It might fall in the category of too little, too late, but the Islanders have made a serious dent in their power-play issues following the All-Star break.

After Bo Horvat scored on the man-advantage against the Canadiens on Saturday, the Islanders have scored as many power play-goals since the All-Star break as they did in the 25 games prior to it — a stretch over which they were an abysmal 4-for-68.

Given that the 4-for-68 was in no small part responsible for their struggles over that period, which will be in large part the cause should they miss the playoffs, it’s not quite an unmitigated positive. But the progress — the Islanders are 4-for-9 since returning from the layoff — looks like more than a mirage.

“Part of why I’m here is to try and spark it a little bit,” said Horvat, whose addition is in no small part responsible for the improved play. “Me trying to create open ice for them and get open myself.”

Horvat, who has replaced Jean-Gabriel Pageau in the bumper spot on the first power-play unit, has two of those four power-play goals. That is not surprising given that he had 11 with Vancouver before the trade — more than doubling Pageau, who leads the Islanders with five power-play goals.

The largely dormant second unit, where Pageau has since been dropped, also got on the board with Kyle Palmieri scoring against the Flyers in the team’s first game back from the All-Star break.

It would be overly simplistic to say it all comes down to the addition of Horvat. But it goes without saying that his addition is by far the biggest reason the Islanders are suddenly playing with more confidence and converting more regularly. A top unit featuring the new guy at the bumper, Anders Lee down low, Mathew Barzal and Brock Nelson at either circle with Noah Dobson up top looks — at least on paper — like it should easily be in the top half of the league.

Following Saturday’s disastrous 4-3 overtime loss in Montreal, the conversation rightly centered on the four-on-three power play the Islanders failed to convert in the extra period. That featured two shots on net, three blocked by Montreal and two attempts missed before Mike Hoffman bolted out of the penalty box to create a two-on-none rush, where Mike Matheson buried Hoffman’s rebound for the winner.

Though the Islanders possessed the puck for the entirety of the power play, they didn’t create any rebounds for Horvat to pounce on down low and struggled to create shots from inside the faceoff dots, as the Canadiens packed in tight and kept the puck out of the highly dangerous areas.

“We had some good looks, the goalie made some good saves,” Dobson said. “Obviously you want to score there. We kinda threw everything at them, they did a good job. I think we just gotta manage the game a little better once that power play’s over with.”

So there is still ample room for improvement.

The context around that failed chance makes it far, far worse. But in a vacuum, the Islanders, who ranked 27th in the league on the power play going into Sunday, will take the improvement and run.

“We’ve done a good job since the break,” coach Lane Lambert said. “We’ve scored some goals and we win ourselves an opportunity from that standpoint. I thought our power play in overtime, we had a lot of looks. They had some good goaltending, they blocked some shots. We got the looks that we wanted.”