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 crease with his glove. Acquired at the trade deadline from the Capitals, Kuznetsov used his trademark slow-skating approach -- clocking in at 4 mph when he shot the puck -- to outlast goalie Semyon Varlamov.

"The closer he gets to the net, the more comfortable we feel," Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis said. "We know how nasty he is. He's done it to us a few times. To see it work for us in a moment like that is absolutely massive."

But the Islanders rallied in the second period. Brock Nelson scored at 3:47 when his shot deflected off the stick of Carolina defender Jalen Chatfield. They tied the game with 22 seconds left in the period as Casey Cizikas scored his first of the playoffs on a play that saw goalie Frederik Andersen lose his balance and fall near his right goalpost.

"We knew we let them crawl back into it in the second," said Jarvis, who would add an empty netter before the buzzer. "You never want to do that, especially against a team like that. But we have so many good veterans that kept us calm. We didn't get flustered."

Then disaster struck for the Islanders in an eight-second span. Drury scored at 4:36 on a broken play in the offensive zone. Noesen scored eight seconds later on a terrible bounce for New York. Off the faceoff, defenseman Skjei fired the puck into the offensive zone. Varlamov went behind the net, anticipating the puck would reach him. Instead, it ricocheted off the side boards and slid toward the crease, where an alert Noesen tucked it home.

"The first one was just a bouncing puck that settled down for their guy on the weak side. The second goal, it's just a s---ty bounce. Not a whole lot you can do," Islanders winger Kyle Palmieri said. "It stings to get put down by two like that. But we battled back from down two earlier in the game. We knew we had our backs against the wall and we battles our asses off to try and find a way to try and win it."

Lee said he's proud of the fight the Islanders showed this season.

"At no point in this season or in this series did anyone take their foot off the gas and stop believing what we're doing," he said. "It's a tight series. We didn't get what we needed. Didn't get that extra bounce. They got two tonight."

The Hurricanes advance to face the New York Rangers in the second round. Coach Rod Brind'Amour said his team will have to improve its game after dispatching the Islanders.

"The Rangers are the best team in the league, right?" he said. "We know what they're all about: just immense talent, coached really well, good goaltending. What don't they have? We're going to have to play better if we expect to win."

A little more good puck luck wouldn't hurt, either.

"It's the playoffs. It's one play here or there that makes the difference in the game," Brind'Amour said. "Tonight we were the fortunate ones to get that bounce."

LOS ANGELES -- Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic got an early start on his postgame treatment Wednesday night, wrapping a large bag of ice around his sprained right knee midway through the fourth quarter.

Doncic had already put the finishing touches on his best performance of this first-round series. He recorded 35 points, 7 rebounds and 10 assists despite playing through illness and injury to lead the Mavs to a 123-93 rout of the LA Clippers in a pivotal Game 5, hours after acknowledging that he would "probably not" play on his sprained knee if this were the regular season.

"It's the playoffs," said Doncic, who has been battling a cold for several days and injured his knee in the first quarter of Game 3. "When you start the game in the playoffs, it's a different thing. There's a lot of adrenaline, a lot of emotions. So you just keep going."

Doncic was especially dominant in the third quarter, when Dallas stretched its 10-point halftime lead to 20. He had 14 points and 3 assists in the quarter, playing all but 8 seconds.

Doncic continued to struggle with his jump shot, going 2-of-8 on 3-point attempts to dip to 26.3% from long range in the series. But he made 12 of his 18 attempts inside the arc, scoring 20 points in the paint.

"Obviously, my shooting is not great. Not even good. Very bad actually," Doncic said. "I was just getting downhill. The first four 3s I took felt great, just didn't go in, but my whole mentality was just getting downhill."

As was the case in the Mavs' previous two wins in the series, Doncic also excelled on the defensive end of the floor, where he struggled mightily in Dallas' Game 4 loss Sunday.

According to ESPN Stats & Information, the Clippers were 3-of-12 from the floor when Doncic was the primary defender in Game 5, including 0-of-7 from 3-point range.

"I always speak on his resilience," said Mavs co-star Kyrie Irving, who had 14 points and 6 assists. "He's not feeling a hundred percent, but he's still going to go out there and play. For me as a teammate, I enjoy that. I enjoy being around somebody like that that's going to push themselves but also be smart and still make an impact on the game -- and still empty his clips, as we like to say. Even though he is not feeling well or he's not able to be a hundred percent, he's still able to lead our team in his own way."

It was the fifth 30-point, 10-assist performance of Doncic's postseason career. Other players in franchise history have combined to accomplish that feat only twice, with Steve Nash and Mark Aguirre each having one such playoff performance.

Doncic, who shot better than 50% from the floor for the first time in this series, scored or assisted on 61 of the Mavs' 123 points to help put the Clippers on the brink of elimination.

"We knew at some point Luka was going to have a Luka game," Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. "We're not going to hang our heads. We got to win four games. We go to Dallas, Game 6 on Friday and we'll be ready to go."

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Aleksander Barkov remembers the disappointment of years past.

The Tampa Bay Lightning had eliminated his Florida Panthers from the Stanley Cup playoffs in each of their previous three meetings, and if the Panthers wanted to cement themselves as one of the NHL's best, this year's result needed to be different.

"At some point you knew you were going to have them again," Barkov said, "and you've got to be able to get over that hump, and we did it this year."

Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe each had two goals and an assist to go along with 31 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky, and the Panthers beat the Lightning 6-1 in Game 5 on Monday night to clinch the first-round series.

Niko Mikkola had a goal and an assist, Evan Rodrigues also scored and Matthew Tkachuk had two assists for the Panthers, who won a playoff series against Tampa Bay for the first time in franchise history and clinched a postseason series at home for only the fourth time. Florida bested Boston and Philadelphia on home ice in the first two rounds of the 1996 playoffs then eliminated Carolina at home in last season's Eastern Conference finals en route to their second Stanley Cup Final appearance.

The Panthers didn't downplay it: Monday night's win meant a lot.

All three playoff series between these two teams have come in the past four years, with Tampa Bay winning the first one 4-2 in 2021 then sweeping Florida in 2022. The Panthers won the first three games this year before the Lightning avoided elimination with a 6-3 win in Game 4, forcing the Panthers to close out the series on home ice.

"This was a big series for us," said Tkachuk, who had three goals and six assists in the first round. "We always knew that for us ultimately to win it all, it was probably going to have to go through Tampa at some point, so just an amazing feeling closing it out at home."

The Panthers made it past the opening round of the playoffs for a franchise-best third straight year. Florida has won five series over the past three postseasons, the most among all teams during that span.

The Panthers' six goals were their most in a series-clinching game in franchise history (previous high was four). It also was just the second time that the Panthers had more than one multiple-goal scorer in a playoff game (first time was May 18, 1996, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals versus Pittsburgh, from Tom Fitzgerald and Dave Lowry).

Victor Hedman scored for the Lightning, which was eliminated in the first round for the second straight campaign after reaching the Stanley Cup Final three straight years. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 33 shots.

Verhaeghe opened the scoring for the Panthers with a 4-on-4 goal just 45 seconds into the second period. Verhaeghe grabbed his own rebound and wristed a shot past Vasilevskiy.

Barkov gave Florida a 2-0 lead when he pounced on a rebound for a short-handed goal -- his first of the playoffs -- at 7:22 of the second period. He added another at 8:54 of a four-goal third for Florida to restore the Panthers' two-goal cushion after Hedman got the Lightning on the board 59 seconds after Barkov's first score.

The Panthers had 22 shots on goal in the second, which is the second most in a single period of a playoff game in franchise history. Florida had 23 shots in the third period of a playoff win against Pittsburgh in 1996.

Rodrigues added a score for good measure with less than six minutes left to play on a wrist shot that was his first goal of the playoffs, and Verhaeghe scored an empty-netter with just under four minutes to play to stretch his franchise-record goals total to 20. Mikkola added to the onslaught with another empty-netter nearly three minutes later.

Anthony Cirelli appeared to have scored Tampa Bay's first goal when he tapped a loose puck past Bobrovsky with seven minutes left in the first period. The goal was overturned, however, after the Panthers challenged for goaltender interference. Former Panther Anthony Duclair's right skate made contact with Bobrovsky as he was trying to make the save.

The Lightning had another goal waved off in the second period when Mikhail Sergachev appeared to tie it on a long-range shot from the blue line. The goal was immediately waved off because of goaltender interference by Cirelli and upheld after a failed Tampa Bay challenge.

Lightning coach Jon Cooper said he didn't feel Duclair's interference was "egregious" enough to warrant disallowing the goal.

"Now we have to rebound from that. We do, and then the next one is a net-front battle. I will give the goalie credit: He quit on the play. He completely quit. There was maybe incidental contact, at most."

"Net-front battles aren't allowed anymore?" Cooper continued. "That's part of everybody's game. The boxing out that goes there is like prison rules in the playoffs. But it's not prison rules for the goalie? ... And when the players are working so hard on both teams, like I said, it's a war down there. I think we're letting the goalies off the hook."

The Lightning's NHL-best power play from the regular season was inconsistent in this first round. Tampa Bay had two man advantages in the first 10 minutes of the opening period -- Florida killed them both off -- and finished the game 0-for-3.

The Panthers will play either Boston or Toronto in the second round. Boston leads that series 3-1, with Game 5 on Tuesday.

ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.