The Islanders still need to figure out how to start games well. But as far as finishing them, they got their mojo back Saturday. 

After a listless opening 25 minutes, the Isles fought back three separate times to take a 4-3 win on Zach Parise’s overtime winner against the Blue Jackets at UBS Arena. The Islanders now will roll into a four-game road trip with a 10-6-0 record and momentum at their backs. 

“You don’t want to make a habit of it, but you have to have that ability to know if it does happen, you can come back, and right now we’re feeling that,” Parise said. “We’re feeling that we can come back from any deficit.” 

Coming into the final 20 minutes tied at two, the Blue Jackets took the lead at 9:38 on a slap shot from Marcus Bjork, who was making his NHL debut, just 12 seconds after a successful Islanders penalty kill. 

The feel-good story for Columbus, though, did not last. 

Scott Mayfield backhanded the puck past Joonas Korpisalo to tie it at three at 12:51 of the third, putting him one off his career high in scoring just 16 games into the season and giving the game’s final swing to the Islanders. 

In overtime, Parise netted the winner just 39 seconds in, taking advantage on a breakaway pass from Jean-Gabriel Pageau after a Columbus lineup featuring three forwards turned the puck over. 

“You try to take advantage as quick as you can,” Parise said. “We were able to do that on that turnover — quick strike and beat ’em up the ice.” 

The win allowed the start of the game, in which the Islanders played deliberately as opposed to aggressively, to be set aside. Ditto for the second period, in which Brock Nelson scored twice, both times tying the game, after Cole Sillinger and Emil Bemstrom gave the Blue Jackets leads of 1-0 and 2-1, respectively. 

The Islanders have won games in the third period with regularity, and this one was no exception. 

Over 60:39, though, the team’s two sides were on display, with their better angels eventually winning out. 

During long stretches of play, though, especially early in the game, the Islanders looked a lot like the team that got shut out by the Coyotes on Thursday, playing structured hockey that failed to yield offensive chances or allow a chance to assert themselves. 

“It’s a hard league and every game’s a hard game,” coach Lane Lambert said. “There isn’t much ice out there and there isn’t any free ice out there. I thought it was a battle.” 

Still, it is no coincidence that the Islanders have allowed the first goal in five of their past six games. They have more often than not played well enough to escape that predicament, but yet again, they played with fire on Saturday — this time against a banged up team currently holding the worst record in the Eastern Conference. 

“We haven’t had the best starts, I guess,” said Mayfield, who finished the night with a goal and an assist. “At the same time, the character in here, the way we can come back — at the end of the day, it’s two points.” 

Indeed, a win is a win, and these were two points the Islanders had no business letting slip through their fingers. They got the job done, and that is the bottom line, but there is an element of inconsistency still holding this team back. 

That cognitive dissonance — a team that has beaten Colorado while getting shut out by Arizona — was very much a factor Saturday. If the Islanders can find a way to fully overcome it, they can make something of this season.