On the short list of positives to take from this Islanders season, near the top is this: Brock Nelson, nine years into his NHL career, suddenly looks like a 30-goal scorer.

The 30-year-old, whose career-high in goal scoring is 26 (in both 2015-16 and 2019-2020), is on pace to blast past that mark. Through 41 games entering Thursday, he had hit the back of the net 19 times, putting him on an 82-game pace of 38. Despite Nelson missing nine games earlier this season between injury and COVID-19, he does at least seem like a sure bet to hit 30.

If he does, Nelson would be the first Islanders player to hit the mark since Anders Lee and John Tavares scored 40 and 37 in 2017-18, when the team was playing home games at Barclays Center under coach Doug Weight.

“That’d be pretty cool,” Nelson said last week of the possibility. “You obviously set individual goals, I won’t say what each season I’ve set. I think it gives me something to strive for. If you do that, I’d like to say you’re trying to help the team win and contribute to wins.”

Nelson couldn’t come up with specifics for his increased prowess, at least beyond trying to get better every offseason. Islanders coach Barry Trotz, though, pointed to a better, quicker shot.

“It comes with confidence,” Trotz said last week. “When you know where the net is, you don’t have to look at the net and I think he’s gotten that. He’s gotten to the point where he knows where the net is, where I think in the past, maybe he’d get it and look up and he’s trying to place it. Now I think he gets the puck, he knows what he’s doing a little quicker.

“That’s key in the National Hockey League. Goaltenders, they’re so dialed in, and they read the puck off your stick so well. And I think he’s, by getting his shot off a little quicker and knowing where the net is, it doesn’t allow the goalies to get as set as maybe when he was a younger player.”

The mental aspect of these things tends to be a self-perpetuating cycle. A player’s shot improves, the player scores more, the player’s confidence rises, and then that in turn accelerates more improvement.

For Nelson, the de facto first-line center in the wake of Mathew Barzal’s absence with a lower-body injury, that seems to be the case.

“Brock’s been probably our most consistent player for the whole year,” Trotz said ahead of Thursday’s game. “There’s times when he’s been flat like the rest of the team. … We’re not a high-scoring team, he’s got 19 goals. So he’s producing at a decent rate.”

Trotz said he’s tried to keep Nelson with Anthony Beauvillier as the lines have shuffled.

“Every time you mix them up, there’s usually a pair of guys together,” Trotz said. “And Brock’s getting a lot of attention right now. He gets the Barzal matchup for the most part.”