Ryan Pulock and Jean-Gabriel Pageau looked at each other, both waiting for the other to speak. They had just been asked, following the Islanders’ crushing 5-3 defeat at Colorado on Tuesday, whether they had seen enough on the trip to be encouraged. Pulock finally broke the silence.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think for the most part we did a lot of good things. Thought we played with more energy, created more, we played hard.”

The hard part to swallow for the Islanders is that these were not the empty clichés they’ve often trotted out after losses this season. During a five-game western swing, the Islanders played some of their best hockey of the season. Despite losing star center Mathew Barzal and defenseman Zdeno Chara to injury, the Isles were a fleeting series of bounces away from a 4-1 record with a bulletin board win over the Stanley Cup-favorite Avalanche. If there’s anything that could have changed the conversation around a season that’s gone so terribly wrong, it would have been that.

Instead, the Islanders couldn’t come up with a shootout goal at San Jose. And after displaying a newfound resiliency to seemingly take the lead in the third period against the Avalanche, Sebastian Aho’s goal was waved off, setting the stage for Andre Burakovsky’s game-winner a minute later.

So, the Islanders trudge back home having gone 2-2-1, still 17 points out of a playoff spot. For now, though, they have no choice but to look forward to a five-game homestand that starts on Thursday night with the Canucks.

The team didn’t practice Wednesday, but Islanders coach Barry Trotz said prior to the Colorado game he doesn’t expect Barzal or Chara to be ready to face Vancouver. Still, it will be a chance to build on their recent play — this time, they’ll hope, with two points to show for it.

“Moving forward, and we have to move forward, we can look at a lot of good things that we did, the way we played,” Zach Parise said. “I think the aggressiveness that our defensemen showed in breaking up plays at the blueline and getting involved in the offenes, there’s a lot of good from this trip.”

A frustrated Trotz said the performance against the Avalanche reminded him of when the Islanders were rolling last season.

“I thought it was line after line doing some really good things for us,” Trotz said. “I thought Pageau’s line did a really good job, followed by [Brock] Nelson and [Casey] Cizikas’ line. They all had some contribution in terms of grind them down.”

The key difference from last year, though, is in the result.

Following Tuesday night, in which a video review that came down to inches was the key difference between two points and none, Trotz could only point to fate to try and explain it.

“I would say if you were looking at last year, the hockey gods, we would’ve scored,” Trotz said Tuesday night. “Pageau would’ve scored [at the end of the game]. That Sebastian Aho goal would’ve ended up being in.”

Maybe, then, the best explanation for the Islanders’ struggles is that it simply isn’t meant to be for them.