It wasn’t pretty, but that won’t matter to anybody wearing blue and orange.

Nor will it make much difference, at least in the moment, that the Islanders have already severely damaged their playoff hopes throughout the month of January. Friday was just about the reprieve that a win finally brought the Islanders, whose morale had been bruised and battered during a six-game losing streak that ended with a 2-0 victory over the Red Wings at UBS Arena.

Nevertheless, the good feelings will last about as long as it takes for the Islanders to lose again. And the Golden Knights, after a 4-1 loss ot the Rangers, are coming to Long Island on Saturday night to finish their own back-to-back, so there is a chance those good feelings will end up lasting fewer than 24 hours. But for the moment, it was an awfully necessary morale boost.

“We needed it tonight,” captain Anders Lee said. “We needed it for a while, but tonight was a night, an opportunity to stop it. I thought we played a real solid game.”

It was not the Islanders’ most energetic, nor emphatic, win, but it was fitting that the opening goal was scored by Lee. That’s not only because the Islanders were celebrating John Tonelli, whose No. 27 Lee will be the last player on the franchise to wear. It’s also because the line of Lee, Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri has been their best forward group since Palmieri returned to the lineup Monday (after missing more than a month) and was once again on Friday, when it was responsible for both of their goals.

The Islanders have consistently struggled for offense and did so again as Ilya Sorokin’s 23-save shutout, his fourth of the season, backstopped them.

“Defense played good. No breakaways, no two-on-ones,” Sorokin said of a structured defensive effort. “For a goalie it’s really good.”

Nelson’s line consistently found itself in scoring positions, able to forecheck and work below the hashes in a way the Islanders have not often done lately.

At 4:44 of the second period, that paid off. Lee dove to redirect a shot from Nelson, which also touched Palmieri before getting to Lee. That handed the Islanders a 1-0 lead, which held into the third period.

Less than five minutes into the third, the same line struck again, as Nelson’s wrist shot from the point floated through traffic and past Magnus Hellberg to make it 2-0. It was the first third-period goal the Islanders had scored since Jan. 3 at Vancouver, and the first on home ice in exactly a month; the last was in a 5-1 victory over the Penguins on Dec. 27.

It was also the fourth primary assist in three games since his return for Palmieri, who has brought a needed oomph.

From there, it was relatively straightforward to hold the lead against a Detroit team that, on the second end of a back-to-back, lacked the energy for a sustained push. The defensive structure, which came apart earlier Monday in Toronto, held fast. Sorokin was rarely threatened.

“It was a long time waiting there for things to be ready to go,” Palmieri said. “Happy to be back. … We went out there tonight and took care of business.”

On its own, one win won’t paper over the many issues plaguing this team. The power play, scoreless again, is on a 3-for-63 run. The playoff picture is still unforgiving, though the Islanders did keep the Red Wings from jumping them in the standings. It will take an emphatic and sustained turnaround to keep Friday from quickly becoming meaningless in the long run.

But getting back on track has to start somewhere, and at this point, just getting a win on home ice — something the Islanders had done just once in January — is a weight off this team’s shoulders.

Maybe that is what getting off the mat looks like.

“I’ve been on bad teams before. It’s not that feeling here,” Palmieri said after the Islanders moved to 24-22-5. “We knew it was gonna turn. It’s incredibly hard to believe in that, but we knew it [was]. We’ve got one more game here before the break to feel good and get on a little bit of a streak.”

Maybe that will be the start of something.