BUFFALO — One team at KeyBank Center on Thursday looked like it was ready to make a run at a playoff berth.

It wasn’t the Islanders.

They can now add the Sabres to the list of teams they’ll need to fend off if the postseason is in the cards, though that looks less likely than ever following a 3-2 overtime loss at Buffalo’s hands on Thursday night.

It’s the third game in four in which the Islanders have scored first and blown the lead — as Victor Olofsson tied it and Dylan Cozens won it for the Sabres just 12 seconds into the extra period. The Islanders (23-19-5) got a point. But not one that will make them feel good.

“Frustration is a wasted emotion,” coach Lane Lambert said following the seventh loss in eight games for the Islanders. “Is it disappointing? Yes. But we have to move on.”

The Sabres, who have played three fewer games than the Islanders, are just four points behind them in the standings. And the Islanders, who have played three more games than the Penguins, are tied on points with Pittsburgh for the last wild-card spot in the standings.

That would put them between a rock and a hard place, without even accounting for their recent run of form. This is starting to rival the COVID-19-addled stretch that took them out of the playoff race last season, though the Isles — while dealing with some injuries, including two new ones to Hudson Fasching and Cal Clutterbuck — are nowhere near as undermanned as they were then.

Likewise, this situation doesn’t seem quite as hopeless as that one. But it is looking worse by the day, and 24 hours after Lambert was asked if a loss to the Bruins qualified as the season’s low point, the Isles dug deeper by wasting an excellent, 42-save performance from Ilya Sorokin.

“Have we gotten the results we’ve wanted? No,” said Matt Martin, who scored to put the Isles ahead 2-1 with 90 seconds left in the second period. “Are we as far back in the standings as we could possibly be? No. We’re still very much in the mix. But we definitely gotta get going here and start stringing wins together.”

That is true. But right now, it counts as optimism.

After Martin’s goal, the Islanders made it 9:32 into the final period before Victor Olofsson tied it with a rocket from the left circle that energized a sellout crowd which had waited all night for its team to kick the door down.

They would have to wait until overtime to finally watch the Sabres do so, but as soon as the extra period started, Cozens took a Hail Mary of a stretch pass from Rasmus Dahlin and buried it.

“It’s a great play by them,” Lambert said. “And it can’t happen.”

Sorokin, who was fittingly named an All-Star in the game’s final minutes, single-handedly kept the Islanders in the game when they were out-chanced 48-26, including a 20-5 margin in the opening 20 minutes. But, keeping with the theme of the season, the Isles couldn’t get a win for him.

“I don’t have frustration,” Sorokin said afterwards. “If you overthink too much, it’s not good for you and for your emotional stability.”

After those desperate first 20 minutes, which the Islanders somehow exited with a 1-0 lead thanks to a Brock Nelson goal, they played the Sabres a bit closer to even for the rest of the night. Close enough to rue the missed chances instead of merely being thankful for the point they got — as Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stoned Anthony Beauvillier in the final 10 seconds of regulation and Mattias Samuelsson came up with a key block on Ryan Pulock’s power play shot late in the first period facing an open net.

“It’s frustrating, absolutely, but we gotta keep going,” Martin said. “Kinda staying afloat, but not getting the job done either. We need to find a way to win hockey games.”

Saturday against the Hurricanes would be a good time to do so.