SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The Islanders are limping into the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off in more ways than one.

The high of a seven-game winning streak that vaulted them into playoff contention is over.

Now it is about getting over the cutline and proving that a great two weeks wasn’t merely a mirage.

And allowing five consecutive goals to see a 3-1 lead turn into a 6-3 loss to the Wild on Saturday night does not inspire any notions that the Islanders are a legit contender masquerading as a playoff hopeful.

The Islanders may not have been badly outplayed in any of the three losses they suffered over their past four games, and this trip always looked tough with a back-to-back against two Cup hopefuls.

But this is a results business, and in losing, the Islanders squandered a chance to get within two points of the playoff cutline.

“I guess we didn’t have the legs to come back in the third period,” coach Patrick Roy said, echoing the assessment of Alexander Romanov. “When we play back to back, it’s catchup hockey, maybe a little tougher to do. Especially against a team that’s rested.”

Compounding the issue is that the Islanders have essentially played the past week with five defensemen, as Roy’s trust in Dennis Cholowski has hovered somewhere close to zero.

Cholowski played a season-low 2:52 on Saturday, and has not played more than 10 minutes in a game since returning to the lineup — which means an even tougher load on the rest of an already taxed defense.

“We just play to win,” Roy said when asked about what led to that, essentially admitting that he does not believe Cholowski can help them do so. “And sometimes we have to make the decisions that you think is the right one. We’re just gonna continue to do that.”

Even so, it looked like the Islanders were on their way to gritting out a win on the second end of a back-to-back before everything went to pieces late in the second.

Frederik Gaudreau cut a 3-1 lead to 3-2 with a power-play goal from the top of the zone after the puck glanced off Tony DeAngelo and past Ilya Sorokin at the 13:21 mark of the period.

Then Matt Boldy and Yakov Trenin scored nearly identical goals separated by just 51 seconds, both of them deflecting point shots from Jonas Brodin and Jake Middleton, respectively.

Suddenly, the Islanders were trailing 4-3 in a game they had largely controlled, and reeling going into the second intermission.

And on a night when the Islanders did not have a full tank at the start of the game, having played 24 hours prior, there was no comeback in store.

Tired legs looked at fault on the failed breakout that led to Boldy’s second goal of the night 5:53 into the third, when the Minnesota winger threw the puck at the crease only for DeAngelo to whack it into his own net.

There was no push forthcoming, and Marcus Foligno’s empty-netter sealed up a result that looked a lot less close than the game felt for much of the night.

“We gotta turn the puck over less,” Romanov said. “Before every single goal, we turned the puck over twice in our zone, maybe three times. Couldn’t get it out. So that’s the homework for the break.”

Aside from that, the message emanating from the dressing room was that this was a hard-luck kind of loss — the second end of a back-to-back colliding with a couple tough bounces, namely the two goals that went off DeAngelo.

There’s some truth in that, but the Islanders have also lost three of their past four, coinciding directly with Mat Barzal and Scott Mayfield’s injuries.

Worse, it doesn’t look like the Islanders are getting Barzal back anytime soon after the team confirmed he recently underwent surgery for a presumed left kneecap injury.

As for Mayfield, who has been called day to day, the Islanders could badly use him back when they return from the break, the timing of which is as helpful to them as any team in the league.

The Islanders could still go any which way at the March 7 trade deadline, and general manager Lou Lamoriello will likely stick to one of his favorite axioms: If you have time, use it.

But the Isles’ outlook is much tougher going into the two-week layoff than it was just seven days prior.