The Islanders knew they needed to rediscover their offense as they began the second half of the season.

Forcing overtime against the Devils on Tuesday night before winning 4-3 in the final seconds of the extra period was a start. It was the Islanders’ first multi-goal game of 2020 and their second straight win in as many nights, coming in front of a split crowd of 14,518 at Prudential Center.

Anders Lee found the back of the net with just 51 seconds left in 3-on-3 play after catching the Devils on a line change. Devon Toews dished the puck to Lee, who beat goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood up high to avoid a shootout.

“I think we were all finding that energy in the depths of our legs,” Lee said after the win. “On these back-to-backs, a lot of it’s mental. We talk about that a lot. We’re obviously geared up and ready to go, it’s just that mental side of it that you got to grind through sometimes. We kind of did that a lot tonight.”

The Islanders experienced some serious déjà vu in the win. Just three days earlier, the Devils had beaten them 2-1 at Nassau Coliseum off goals from P.K. Subban and Nico Hischier. The same two culprits lit the lamp again Tuesday, before Kyle Palimieri gave the Devils a 3-2 lead with a power-play goal in the third. The Islanders’ penalty kill hadn’t allowed a man-advantage tally in the last 13 power plays it faced.

But a blast from Tom Kuhnhackl at the top of the zone knotted the game 3-3 at 14:14 of the third.

“We needed a bounce and we got a couple tonight,” Lee said.

After the Islanders set a franchise record with 33 blocked shots in their 1-0 win over the Avalanche on Monday, their stellar positioning in the defensive zone continued against the Devils, with 10 total blocked shots — including five in the first period.

Isles netminder Thomas Greiss stopped 32 of the 35 shots he faced in his first start since he was pulled in the 5-2 loss in Chicago on Dec. 27. Coach Barry Trotz thought it was an important win for Greiss, noting that it was “good for his psyche” after having a couple of games get away from him recently.

Both teams were loose on defense to start the game, with neither side finishing their checks or playing with any sense of urgency. Leo Komarov jump-started a rush for the Islanders with a takeaway in the neutral zone that he dished to Matt Martin in the slot for a shot, allowing Cizikas to bury the rebound for the first tally of the game at 3:38 of the first.

Mathew Barzal nearly doubled the Islanders’ score off a hard shot while streaking down the left side of the ice in full stride. Blackwood was forced to redirect the shot off his facemask to keep it a one-goal game.

The stop paid off as Subban netted his fifth goal of the season shortly after with a snipe over Greiss’ shoulder from the left faceoff circle at 8:37.

Eberle then regained the lead for the Isles at 10:17 with his first goal since Dec. 14. Lee had also rung the post in the opening minutes before Nick Leddy hit iron again with under four minutes of the first. A glove-save from Greiss on Travis Zajac at 18:03 protected the Islanders’ lead.

Neither the Islanders nor the Devils could maintain possession throughout the second period. The Islanders were getting too fancy with their passes, while the Devils simply couldn’t gain control for more than 30 seconds in the offensive zone.

Once Hischier made it 2-2 with a tremendous individual effort that ended with a slick backhander through traffic at 18:24, there was a bit of a wake-up call at the defensive end of the ice. Cizikas came off the bench with purpose at the end of the second, nearly capitalizing on a wraparound that wasn’t tight enough to beat Blackwood.

But that’s what Islanders coach Barry Trotz said he expects from his team every night — the resiliency to come from behind no matter where they’re playing or who they’re facing.

“I’m proud of the resiliency,” Trotz said. “And I think we have been. There’s not too many games in an 82-game schedule where we sort of folded our tents. We stay in the fight and we saw that [tonight], we could’ve folded our tents and gone, ‘Hey, it’s not going to happen tonight.’ But we stayed with it and you get rewarded.

“I always think that you get tested in this game and if you stay with it, you get rewarded at the right times sometimes. The harder you work the luckier you get.”