'Lucky bounces' the difference as Hurricanes oust Islanders - ESPN

After their Game 5 victory, Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei noted the key difference between his team and the New York Islanders, the team it eliminated Tuesday night.

«Those lucky bounces went our way,» he said after the Hurricanes' 6-3 win in Raleigh.

The Hurricanes' Jack Drury and Stefan Noesen scored eight seconds apart in the third period, the fastest two goals in a playoff game in franchise history. That broke their previous record of nine seconds between goals, which was set in the third period of Game 2 against the Islanders.

Drury's goal came on a deflected puck that the Islanders couldn't clear from their zone. Noesen scored eight seconds later on a bounce off the side boards that sailed directly to the Islanders' net.

«It sucks that we're done playing. It's just a tough way to lose a game like that,» Islanders captain Anders Lee said. «We were grinding back. Stayed in the fight all night. We believed we were going to win this hockey game. And then two bounces like that.… It's tough to swallow.»

The five-game series was a tough, competitive matchup between the second and third seeds in the Metro Division. But after the Islanders won Game 4 in double-overtime to avoid elimination, the Hurricanes came out strong back at home to try to finish them off.

The Hurricanes built a 2-0 lead in the first 3:13 of the game on goals by Teuvo Teravainen and Andrei Svechnikov, whose power-play tally deflected off the stick of Islanders defenseman Robert Bortuzzo.

Mike Reilly's power-play goal just 41 seconds after Svechnikov's tally made it 2-1, but Carolina increased its lead again on a Evgeny Kuznetsov penalty shot goal that the Hurricanes earned when Islanders defenseman Alexander Romanov covered the puck in the