How do you make a stinging loss in the heat of a playoff race sting just that little bit more? 

Well, watching two of Calgary’s four goals on Saturday get scored by Greenlawn, L.I. native and childhood Islanders fan Matt Coronato would be one way. 

Another would be watching Nazem Kadri win the game in overtime for Calgary after the Islanders let a pair of chances slip through their fingers on the other end of the ice, having held a lead with under three minutes to go in regulation. 

That is how the Islanders’ fledgling three-game winning streak was snapped, with a loser point giving a slight cushion to the blow of a 4-3 overtime defeat to the Flames on Saturday at UBS Arena after a rare blown lead in the third period for a team that used to bleed such defeats. 

“It’s a frustrating way to lose a point there, no doubt about it,” captain Anders Lee said. “Pisses us off in here.” 

Put plainly, however, this just wasn’t close enough to a 60-minute effort to produce two points — with two out-of-nowhere lapses producing half of Calgary’s goal scoring. 

First the Islanders stunk it up on the first shift of the game, handing Calgary the first goal of the afternoon on a platter after 36 seconds.

Then, there was an immediate letdown after Kyle MacLean’s goal put the Isles in front late in the third, allowing the Flames to tie it and send the game to overtime. 

“They played a good game. I think all game, maybe we weren’t, at times, [we were] not matching that,” MacLean said. “So maybe at the end of the day they got their bounce and it went in. Maybe they deserve that.” 

In between there were some good moments for the Islanders, particularly for a bottom six that continues to stack strong performances on top of one another.

But it wasn’t quite enough against a Calgary team in a playoff race of its own, with just as much reason to play hungry as the Islanders. 

Despite the loss, the Islanders stayed two points back of the Habs for the last wild-card spot after the Canadiens lost in overtime to Colorado. 

But with the Rangers beating the Canucks, the Isles fell a point behind their crosstown rivals, albeit with two games in hand. 

A game that was tied at two after 40 minutes gave way to a tense final 20, with both sides playing conservatively — knowing an overtime point would benefit both — and both goalies playing well. 

After the two sides had combined for just 10 shots through 17 minutes of play in the third, the 11th hit pay dirt, with MacLean burying Max Tsyplakov’s rebound with 2:51 to go. 

Any notion that would be the game’s decisive moment, though, lasted all of 30 seconds as Jonathan Huberdeau tipped Rasmus Andersson’s shot past Marcus Hogberg to tie it back up at three all of a shift later. 

That got the game to overtime, where Kadri’s wrister won it with 1:07 to go, with the two best Islander chances ending in the puck getting tangled in Anders Lee’s feet and Noah Dobson fumbling it off his stick in front of the net. 

“Points in five straight, just gotta keep collecting points this time of year,” Dobson said, choosing an optimistic framing. “Every point’s important. Obviously we want to have two but nothing we can do about it now.” 

Hogberg, making his first start in nearly two weeks, acquitted himself well in net for the Islanders with 31 saves and sound positional play. 

The Islanders appeared to get a handle on things after Coronato opened the scoring inside the game’s first minute.

Bo Horvat tied it at one after Tony DeAngelo’s pass hit a body in front and the puck bounced to Horvat in perfect position to clean up the garbage.

Marc Gatcomb put the Isles in the lead before the first period was over, finishing Tsyplakov’s feed off the rush. 

But the Islanders didn’t do enough to build on that lead, struggling through a second period that saw Coronato get on the board a second time with a top-shelf goal off the rush from Huberdeau. 

There was some good in their game on Saturday — enough that a point feels sort of fitting, but not enough to escape the feeling that it was a deserved loss. 

“I think we all know in here,” MacLean said, “we let it slip a little.”