Bo Horvat delivers as Islanders pick up OT win over Canadiens in biggest game of season

You did not need to look hard for evidence of how important this game was for either team.The Islanders and Canadiens alike treated this Thursday night tilt as a playoff game, putting together a hard, physical 60 minutes, and then some, over which space was limited and both teams needed to work hard for their chances.It was a whole world removed from 11 days prior in Anaheim, when the Islanders looked disinterested and done-for just a few days removed from the Brock Nelson trade which tossed a grenade into their collective psyche.That flash-bang has since dissipated, and there was not one iota of negative about the mentality the Islanders brought to their biggest game of the season Thursday.

Ditto for the result, as the Islanders overcame a Canadiens team whose speed threatened to overwhelm them at times 4-3 in overtime via Bo Horvat’s game-winner and a suddenly resurgent power play, which broke an 0-for-18 stretch to score twice.“The kind of position we’re in, the position they’re in, we’re chasing them.We obviously want to make the playoffs and they’re ahead of us,” Horvat told The Post.

“Treated it like a playoff game and felt like one.”The Islanders are now right on the heels of a playoff spot, two points back with 14 games left for themselves and the Habs alike.There are plenty of others in it, and outsize importance attached to the two remaining matches against Columbus and the last Battle of New York.

But in the first game this year with a “most important” label attached, the Islanders measured up.This, however, was not easy — even after the Islanders took a 3-1 lead early in the third when Horvat slid the puck through Sam Montembeault’s five-hole off the rush.The Habs pulled back within 3-2 just a couple minutes later on Patrik Laine’s power-play goal.After Patrick Roy lost a challenge for goaltender interference — having successfully challenged Nick Suzuki’s goal earlier in the game for offside — the Canadiens went righ...