NEW YORK -- Securing nine points in a five-game span helped the New York Islanders escape the basement in the Metropolitan Division. They will need to mount at least one more similar stretch to continue climbing into the Eastern Conference playoff race.

Four players scored a goal apiece Tuesday night for the Islanders, who continued their recent surge by beating the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-2 at Barclays Center.

"We're going to need a couple runs like this," said Islanders center Josh Bailey, whose 100th career goal opened the scoring for New York in the second period. "I think when you get on a bit of a hot streak, you want to ride the wave as long as you can. And for us to have a shot here, we're going to need a lot more of that."

Perhaps beating the Blue Jackets -- one of the few teams in the East that can safely plan for the playoffs -- can help convince the Islanders (20-17-9) they can maintain their recent level of play.

"We looked like a confident team that has something to prove and somewhere to go," said New York interim head coach Doug Weight, who is 3-0-1 since taking over for the fired Jack Capuano on Jan. 24. "So that's exciting to me."

The Blue Jackets (32-11-4) controlled play early in the first, when they recorded five of the game's first six shots and took a 1-0 lead on the fifth shot, when Nick Foligno tipped in the rebound of a shot by Alexander Wennberg at the 8:55 mark.

But the Islanders outshot the Blue Jackets 21-8 through the end of the second period, when they took the lead for good thanks to efforts in front of the net by center Nikolay Kulemin.

Bailey's goal came on a pass to Kulemin, who was jostling for position with Blue Jackets defenseman Seth Jones. Bailey's pass ticked off the skate of Jones and past goalie Sergei Bobrovsky 2:21 into the middle period.

Kulemin put the Islanders ahead with 3:31 remaining in the second. Calvin de Haan's shot bounced off the back of John Tavares' leg and to Kulemin, who backhanded it home for his eighth goal of the season.

"I think when guys are getting to the net, trying to get to the puck there, fortunate bounces do happen sometimes," Bailey said.

Brock Nelson scored 35 seconds into the third, and Jason Chimera chased Bobrovsky with an unassisted goal at 5:21.

"They turned it on," Foligno said. "That's a team that's fighting for points."

Cam Atkinson scored an unassisted goal off a Chimera turnover deep in the Islanders zone with 5:21 left for the Blue Jackets, who are 5-6-0 since a franchise-record, 16-game winning streak from Nov. 29 through Jan. 3.

"We've got to find a way to be desperate here," Foligno said. "We've got to find ways to sustain a good game all the way through. We have not done that in a while here, and that's cause for concern. It's something that we need to get better at."

Islanders goalie Thomas Greiss, who earned second star honors last week after posting two shutouts, recorded 21 saves.

Bobrovsky made 20 saves, while Joonas Korpisalo stopped all five shots he faced in relief.

"I'm not dissecting anything tonight," said Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella, whose postgame comments lasted less than a minute. "We played a good first period, and I don't know where it went to from there. That's all. I'm just tired of talking about what's right, what's wrong."

NOTES: The Islanders scratched C Anders Lee (illness) as well as LW Anthony Beauvillier and D Scott Mayfield. Lee participated in both the morning skate and pre-game warmups before being scratched. ... Islanders LW Andrew Ladd returned to the lineup after missing four games with an upper-body injury. ... The Blue Jackets scratched D Markus Nutivaara and D David Savard with undisclosed injuries along with LW Markus Hannikainen. Nutivaara missed his fifth straight game while Savard sat for the third consecutive contest. ... Blue Jackets G Sergei Bobrovsky was pulled in the middle of a game for the third time this season and the second time in his past six starts.