DENVER — The Islanders can be content with getting a point out of Tuesday.

But it’s hard to be content with how they played.

The Avalanche imposed their will on the Islanders throughout a 5-4 overtime loss in which the Isles played desperate and capitalized on some chances, but blew a pair of leads and saw Nathan MacKinnon score the winner at four-on-three.

It was the third loss in four games for the visitors, and the gameflow very much illustrated the gap between the Isles and a team considered to be one of the Stanley Cup favorites.

“I thought there were moments when we probably could have gotten two [points]. But we have to understand, as a group, collectively, about managing the puck better,” coach Lane Lambert said following a night where his team had little to no extended offensive zone pressure. “It’s that simple.”

It does say something about the Isles that they kept the game close as long as they did, despite being badly outskated. But whatever silver lining comes from that is more than canceled out by the pair of leads the Isles handed away.

From the jump, the Islanders spent most of the game scrambling in the defensive zone, didn’t seem to have an answer for the Avalanche’s speed and rarely broke through the neutral zone.

Goaltender Semyon Varlamov also left the game with an apparent injury after 14:52, forcing Ilya Sorokin into relief. So, too, did Robert Bortuzzo in the second period — without putting weight on his right leg — after taking a big hit from Samuel Girard along the left wall.

Despite all that, the Islanders entered the third period with a 4-3 lead after Alexander Romanov’s one-timer caromed off Jack Johnson’s skate and in 10:18 into the second.

But it was never realistic for that lead to hold with the Islanders letting up as much offensive zone pressure as they were, particularly after Mike Reilly took an interference penalty at the 10:47 mark of the third — a call Lambert described as “terrible.”

Valeri Nichushkin tied the game for Colorado before that power play expired, tapping the puck in after Cale Makar’s shanked shot from the point fell to Nathan MacKinnon at the post, his second goal of the night.

Nichushkin came close to completing the hat trick before regulation expired, but his drive to the net with 20 seconds to go was ruled no goal upon review, allowing the Islanders to escape with a point.

“I thought we did a good job protecting the middle of the ice,” Noah Dobson said. “Guys were collapsing, blocking shots. Wasn’t easy, obviously, going down a man, it’s hard. Tough game to play as it is. But guys did a good job of collapsing, protecting the middle of the ice.”

MacKinnon’s right-circle one-timer after Scott Mayfield’s holding penalty at the end of regulation, though, made getting two points a mere dream.

Asked about the penalty the Islanders took late, Lambert wryly responded: “Which one?”

That was fairly reflective on a night where even Lambert, who would usually prefer to focus on his team’s 31 blocked shots and battle level in a game where they were outshot 39-22, could not pull all that much positive out of his team’s performance.

Goals off the rush from Pierre Engvall, Brock Nelson and Simon Holmstrom helped the Islanders open up a 3-1 lead early in the second period despite Colorado doubling up their shot count through the first 20 minutes. But a pair of goals from Nichushkin and Jonathan Drouin canceled that lead out in short order.

It ended up being the first of two leads the Isles would blow — a gut punch, but one that very much reflected the direction of traffic.

Thirty-seven games into the season, it is becoming a little futile to wonder whether the Islanders are a good team dressed in bad clothing or vice versa. The reality right now is, they are in a tight playoff race and need to keep collecting points.

And the reality is that playing the way they did on Tuesday, at a bare minimum, makes that a lot harder than it needs to be.

“[We] put ourselves in some situations we don’t and can’t continue to put ourselves in,” Lambert said. “But the effort was there.”

That is true. It is also not enough.