The Islanders, many times, have asked Ilya Sorokin to win them a game. On Tuesday, the defense won a game for the star goaltender.

A 1-0 win last season surely would have required Sorokin to play the hero.

The Islanders’ first 1-0 win of this season, however, required him to make just 14 stops Tuesday against the Coyotes at UBS Arena.

The win was notable not for the goalie, but for the defensive effort that made Sorokin’s work easy and made the last period a mostly drama-free affair.

“It’s much easier, yeah sure,” Sorokin told The Post. “Played defense really good tonight, [good] for goalies. Thankful and keep going.”

Things were a little harder than they had to be, thanks to Karel Vejmelka’s heroics in net for Arizona.

Through two periods, the Islanders held a 24-7 advantage in shots on net, but led just 1-0 on the scoreboard, with Mathew Barzal’s left-circle one-timer seconds into a power play early in the second period the difference.

That left the game open in the third, but the Islanders closed it down clinically. It was a defensive master class straight out of the Barry Trotz era, in which the Islanders were so suffocating in their own end that the failure to finish chances was rendered moot.

“I think just good sticks,” Noah Dobson told The Post. “Being on top of each other. Just playing as a collective unit, as five. We didn’t make it easy on them, especially on the forecheck. We kept O-zone possession and made it hard. It was definitely a positive for us.”

At five-on-five, the Islanders look good on offense for most of the night, minus that all-important factor of scoring goals. That has been a theme of the first two games, particularly with the first line, which has produced consistent chances without burying any.

It has not yet cost the Islanders, and in any case, a 2-0 start is not something they have enjoyed since 2014-15, so no one is complaining.

The Islanders didn’t lack chances on Tuesday.

They recorded 11 high-danger looks at five-on-five, scored a power-play goal and spent another two minutes on the man-advantage looking dangerous, as opposed to treating the blue line as a force field they could not pass.

“Our structure at five-on-five is always gonna be kinda tight, a tight hockey game,” Barzal said. “So that’s what I’ve said, we need to get our power play going if we’re a contender.”

And, as important as Sorokin is, one of the biggest takeaways of the victories in the first two games is that the goaltender hasn’t been asked to stand on his head in order to earn them.

The Coyotes did not reach double-digit shots on net until well into the third period.

The Islanders, with Scott Mayfield out, played with active sticks and poise in their own zone, avoiding messy turnovers. For once, the defense let Sorokin rest.

This was evident from early in the first period, when Islanders killed off a four-minute double minor without allowing a shot on net as Dobson spelled Mayfield on the penalty kill.

That is a pretty big piece of the puzzle if it can stay in place.

So, too, is taking care of business against teams like Arizona, that won’t be in the playoff hunt.

Much of why making the playoffs was such a painstaking process for the Islanders last season came down to games like this.

They lost to a terrible Coyotes team twice, memorably blowing a lead at Mullett Arena, and those weren’t the only times the Islanders coughed up two points to a team they had no business losing to.

“You don’t forget stuff like that,” captain Anders Lee said. “All these games are big.”

The Islanders nearly learned that the hard way last season.

This time around, they seem to have little intention of doing so.