This was exactly the sort of game the Islanders should not lose, in exactly the manner they should not lose it.

They entered the third period with a lead then quickly doubled it, having forced the Red Wings into the same kind of low-event and low-danger hockey that so frustrated the Blue Jackets two days prior in Columbus.

Holding the lead, though, proved too much to ask. The Islanders instead gave that up, along with two points as the Red Wings beat them 4-3 in overtime at UBS Arena on Monday after Lucas Raymond’s game-winner.

“I don’t think it’s acceptable,” Noah Dobson said. “Especially at home, to give up three unanswered in the third.

“I think, yeah we’ll take the positive of getting a point, but we gotta do a better job of getting two points every time. Especially at home in the third.”

The collapse came quickly. Daniel Sprong cut a 2-0 lead in half 7:55 into the third, dancing around Sebastian Aho before beating Ilya Sorokin.

Less than two minutes later, Jake Walman tied it with a goal from the left circle, prompting Lane Lambert to use his timeout.

Whatever he said, though, didn’t have much effect.

Barely two minutes after Detroit tied the game, the Red Wings took the lead as the Islanders left J.T. Compher unguarded at the left post, making the go-ahead goal a formality.

“I think we just kinda stopped moving our feet a bit,” Kyle Palmieri told The Post. “It’s a fast league, good players, they’re gonna make plays. Just ended up being we weren’t moving our feet and executing. Teams will make you pay.”

Bo Horvat seemed to bring the momentum back in the Islanders’ favor by tying the game at 3-3 on the power play with 4:11 to go.

That ended up being enough to salvage a point. But for the second time this season, the Islanders lost at home in overtime as Raymond finished a two-on-one chance from Compher.

“I kinda lost my footing a little bit and obviously they made a nice play,” Dobson said. “I gotta do a better job of playing that.”

This game, in truth, never should have gotten that far to begin with.

After nearly 40 scoreless minutes with the Red Wings threatening on the power play, Horvat stripped the puck from Alex DeBrincat to spring Casey Cizikas on a breakaway.

Cizikas promptly dragged to his backhand and poked it through Ville Husso’s five-hole, giving the Islanders a 1-0 lead 18:39 into the game.

A lead that took 38:39 to come to fruition took just 2:26 to double as Brock Nelson tipped Dobson’s shot from the right point to make it 2-0 just over a minute into the third.

Until Cizikas scored, it had been a fairly quiet first two periods — the kind of low-event, structured game the Islanders would like to play.

But they have yet to prove they can maintain the sort of shutdown defense necessary to win consistently, even with the intrinsic advantage they have in nets.

That was at play again on Monday as Sorokin finished with 32 stops and made the save of the night in overtime, getting out the right pad to stop DeBrincat on a chance similar to the one Raymond scored on. But the Islanders never got the puck back and instead let the goaltender continue to get shelled.

“That’s who I feel the worst for,” Cizikas said. “He stands on his head every single night, he gives us a chance to win every single night. We let him down in the third period.”

Detroit, which came into UBS Arena on a three-game losing streak, is the sort of team the Islanders need to beat — particularly at home — since the Red Wings figure to be a threat in the wild-card race down the line.

The Islanders should be right there in the race as well. But if they harbor higher ambitions, they haven’t shown enough through eight games to make them look realistic.