When things were going really slowly for the Islanders in November and early December, it was hard for center John Tavares to look at the big picture. The New York Islanders weren’t playing particularly well, they weren’t getting results and they were languishing behind other teams in the East. So there wasn’t a lot of motivation to look at the standings on a daily basis. Plus, Tavares has a personal philosophy that he doesn’t really start tracking the playoff race until the All-Star break.

“That’s the big turning point; that’s the hint that the stretch run is coming,” Tavares said.

Doug Weight added urgency.

He started posting the standings right after he was promoted to replace Jack Capuano as the Islanders' coach in January. Maybe it was an appeal to the pride of the players in the room with a reminder of where they ranked in the league.

“Yeah. ‘What does it feel like? You’re in the bottom,’” Weight said. “The message is, ‘We’re close. We can put a run together. I believe in this team. But how does it make you feel?’”

Now, for about 20 minutes, the standings are on the television screen before the Islanders players and coaches go over keys for the next game and then break down video.

“Soak it in,” Weight said.

And what was an appeal to the Islanders' pride is now a reminder of how far they’ve advanced in the last month. A victory over Detroit on Tuesday put the Islanders at 66 points, tied with Florida and Boston for the final wild-card spot, with the Panthers enjoying a game in hand.

It was the first game of a nine-game road trip that might just decide whether or not the Islanders are a playoff team. It might even have bigger ramifications than that. The Islanders' success has temporarily quieted the speculation, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we’re witnessing the stretch of hockey that will determine whether or not Tavares stays with the organization in the long term.

Those who know Tavares well consistently say the same thing: He desperately wants to win and he’s also loyal. If this is the beginning of a turnaround under Weight that has staying power, one that is rooted in reality and not just a short-term bounce, you have to believe the inclination would be to find a way to make it work beyond next season.

Tavares can sign a contract extension on July 1 and it’s going to be a big one. The franchise-center market has been an interesting one because the prices have declined slightly since Jonathan Toews signed his eight-year contract worth $10.5 million per season in 2014.

Kings captain Anze Kopitar followed that deal with an eight-year contract worth $10 million per season and then last summer Tampa Bay convinced Steven Stamkos to stay with an eight-year deal worth $8.5 million per year.

Tavares’ deal will be the one that ends that declining trend.

First, in projecting comparable contracts, the Stamkos deal essentially becomes a nonfactor.

“The Stamkos deal is different for a lot of reasons,” said one NHL source. “He was fourth in ice time in the playoffs. He was almost a complimentary piece.”

He was complimentary in that Stamkos isn’t the traditional franchise center. He’s an incredible player who is going to have the most impact on a game by scoring goals. He might even be better suited on the wing, where he plays internationally with Team Canada. He plays in a state without state income taxes and the Lightning had to get another deal done with a franchise defenseman in Victor Hedman. There were a lot of factors for the lower number.

But Stamkos is not cut from quite the same cloth as Sidney Crosby, Toews or Tavares. One of Tavares’ many strengths is that he raises the game of those around him.

Josh Bailey is a great example of that this year. When he and Tavares are on the ice together, as they have been for most of this season, the Islanders score at a rate of 3.21 goals per 60 minutes of even-strength ice time. They control 53.6 percent of the even-strength shot attempts. When Bailey plays with someone else, that goal-scoring rate drops to 1.06 and the shot attempts to 31.1 percent.

Bailey, who has already equaled his career high in points and will eventually pass his career best in goals, said the biggest benefit of playing with Tavares is he fills linemates with confidence.

“That’s why he’s such a great player,” Bailey said. “You see it with all the top players in the world, the guys they play with, they make better and bring them up a level. The more you get to play with a guy like him, the more confidence you get in yoursel,f too.”

That’s a rare, and valuable, contribution Tavares makes every game.

The other reason to expect that Tavares’ next deal will look a lot more like Toews’ than Stamkos’ is that the Islanders will have plenty of cap space. On some level, Anze Kopitar had to pay the price for inflated contracts elsewhere on the Kings' roster if he wanted to stay in Los Angeles and try to win another Stanley Cup with the Kings. Every dollar was huge in that negotiation and that’s why it dragged on as long as it did.

That’s not an issue with the Islanders. They’ll have cap space and they have an ownership eager to set this team on the right path. There really is not a legitimate reason for Tavares to take anything less than he’d get on the open market to stay with the Islanders.

“They have the room to do it,” said one source. “And we’re talking about a deal that is a year and a half from now. It’s going to likely be a lower percentage of the cap [than the other deals].”

In 2014, when Toews signed his deal, he actually left money on the table compared to what he would have received on the open market. There was talk of a contract in the $12 million range, annually.

Reality has hit NHL general managers since then as the salary cap has stalled. But a player of Tavares’ caliber hits the market so infrequently that someone would find a way to pay a huge premium. Landing Tavares in free agency prevents a team from going through years of tanking in order to land a similar franchise center.

Money shouldn’t be an issue with Tavares and the Islanders. It’s everything else. It’s having the right coach and management team in place. It’s making progress in a long-term arena solution.

Mostly, it’s winning.

Tavares is in the same stratosphere as Crosby and Toews. He just isn’t always mentioned next to them because of his lack of playoff success.

“He’s in the top three or four players in the league,” Weight said. “I don’t think people get to see him as much. He is unreal.”

Any time Tavares had an aspect of his game that didn’t measure up to the best in the world, he zeroed in on it. As a rookie, he won just 47.5 percent of his faceoffs. Last year, he got that number to 54.1 percent.

He worked on his shot to be a top goal-scorer, and is on pace for his third consecutive 30-goal season. There used to be knocks on his skating earlier in his career.

“Now there’s two or three skaters in the world as strong as he is,” Weight said. “He’s grown. He’s matured.”

All that’s left is a Stanley Cup.

The rest of the season will go a long way in determining if he believes he can do it with the Islanders. You have to think there would be a special satisfaction in finding a way to win with the team he’s currently leading.

But he owes the Islanders nothing. He’s given them everything up until this point. If he hits July 1 and isn’t convinced of the long-term championship viability with the Islanders, there won’t be a deal. And it makes no sense for the Islanders to bring him back next season in the final year of his contract without hope of an extension. If the Islanders are smart, there will either be a contract extension this summer or a trade, as painful as that would be to make.

It makes this final stretch of games so critical for this franchise. The standings mean more than they have in long time for the Islanders.