The Skidding Islanders can’t get out of the early hole due to their loss to the Bruins

Dueling chants rang out at UBS Arena in the final minute of the Islanders’ 6-3 loss to the Bruins on Wednesday night.

From the Islanders fans who didn’t head for the exits after Nikita Zadorov’s scoreless goal: “Fire Lou!”

From the Boston fans who traveled to Long Island: “Let’s go, Bruins!”

It’s the lowest point of the season so far, and the Islanders can better hope things pick up from here.

“Every night they’re there and they’re pushing,” said coach Patrick Roy, insisting on maintaining optimism for his team despite a paltry 8-10-5 record with just four regular-season wins so far. “It’s the team that (general manager) Lou (Lamoriello) gave me and I’m going to work extremely hard for these guys and I owe that to the players and our fans to make sure we compete every night.

“Our fans may be upset because we are losing games, but one thing is: we compete against each other every night and I would like to see the result go on our side and not on the losing side.”

The Islanders showed some resilience in this game, came back from 0-2 and 2-3 deficits and, according to the analysis, also had the better chances.

But a slow start and poor finish resulted in the Islanders once again trying to win the game despite having no chance for 60 minutes.

Now everyone knows how to do it.

The Islanders were unavailable in this game, falling 2-0 and forcing Roy to call a timeout within the first 6:31 of the game. That got her into a bit of shape, but the damage was already done.

Brock Nelson gave them the initiative early in the final 20 minutes by firing a puck past Joonas Korpisalo with eight seconds left in the second to tie the game at 3-0, but they couldn’t capitalize on the momentum.

Although they applied some pressure at the start of the third period, they were unable to convert it into a goal.

The Bruins then took advantage when Pavel Zacha blocked Andrew Peeke’s point shot at 10:48 of the period, making it 4-3.

Just minutes later, with the Islanders’ resolve clearly exhausted, David Pastrnak put Zacha ahead and made it 5-3 – prompting a round of “Fire Lou” chants from the crowd that were among the loudest of the year UBS Arena and directed ire at Lamoriello throughout the night.

With just over two minutes left, Zadorov scored an empty-netter after leaving the box after the Islanders remained scoreless on their only power play of the night.

“It just seems like we make a little mistake here, wherever it is on the ice, and it compounds and ends up in the back of our net,” Ryan Pulock said. “We have to find a way to be profound in these situations. Tied game midway through the third period, whatever it may be, you just have to be smart with the puck. You can’t mess around. Right now every time we make a mistake it costs us.”

As excellent as Ilya Sorokin has been this season, he wasn’t on his game at all on Wednesday, with six high-danger chances leading to Boston’s first five goals, according to Natural Stat Trick.

You can call it another defeat in the third period. But it’s just as accurate, if not more accurate, to speak of a game the Islanders lost in the opening minutes, when they fell behind 2-0 before pulling back to 2-2 thanks to goals from Maxim Tsyplakov and Nelson approached.

However, the late start did the Islanders no greater favor than the fact that they couldn’t finish the game.

Roy, defiantly optimistic, said it was simply in his nature to focus relentlessly on the good things.

“It’s a long season,” he said. “How many times last season did we say, ‘Oh, the Islanders aren’t going to make the playoffs, oh, the Islanders lost that big game, they lost that big game, that big game?’ We know we have to stay close to .500 when all the (injured) guys are back and that’s what we’re trying to do. But we mess up some games that we could win.

“It is what it is.”

They could still be in the playoff hunt. They may still be dealing with injuries. But right now, the Islanders are a team with just eight wins on Thanksgiving.

It is what it is.