Canucks coach Rick Tocchet defended his decision not to use a coach’s challenge to review the Predators‘ tying goal in Nashville’s eventual 2-1 Game 5 victory in Vancouver on Tuesday night.

At 7:15 of the third period, with Vancouver’s Dakota Joshua in the box for boarding, Predators defenseman Roman Josi went hard to the Canucks net and made contact with goalie Arturs Silovs. The puck ended up behind Silovs, who scrambled to find it.

Both Vancouver forward Teddy Blueger and Nashville winger Gustav Nyquist crashed the crease, and the momentum pushed Silovs into the puck, forcing it over the goal line for a Nashville power-play score.

“I’m sure they took a look at it,” said Josi, who scored his first goal of the playoffs. “I tried to go around the goalie. [The puck] just somehow laid there. I don’t know what happened after. But I laid there, I saw that it went in. That’s all that matters.”

Nashville would score the game-winning goal 5 minutes, 31 seconds later on an Alexandre Carrier shot, cutting Vancouver’s first-round series lead to 3-2.

“If we’re down 2-1, then maybe [I’d challenge]. But it’s 50-50 at that point,” Tocchet explained after the game. “We just looked at it. I don’t know what the NHL would do on that one. I don’t. So, if I don’t know 100 percent … it’s a 1-1 game. We thought about it, but I thought it was 50-50, personally.”

According to Scouting The Refs, the Canucks issued only one coach’s challenge in the regular season for goalie interference.

If Tocchet guessed wrong and the goal stood after review, Vancouver would have been given a minor penalty for delay of game. But some fans felt it would have been worth the gamble in Game 5.

Until Josi’s power-play goal on that scoring play, Nashville had one power-play goal on 18 opportunities.

“Our penalty kill did a great job until that goal on that weird play,” Canucks forward J.T. Miller said.

The Predators avoided elimination, pushing the series to a Game 6 in Nashville on Friday.

“I’m proud of the resiliency they showed,” Preds coach Andrew Brunette said. “They stuck with it. The message was that it might take forever but to keep pounding on the door. I think they did a really good job staying true to themselves.”

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Mikko Rantanen scored his first two goals of the playoffs in the third period, leading the Colorado Avalanche to a 6-3 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night that clinched their opening-round playoff series in five games.

Rantanen, who had an assist, scored twice in a span of just under four minutes early in the third period to snap a 3-3 tie.

Valeri Nichushkin, Yakov Trenin, Artturi Lehkonen and Josh Manson also scored for the Avalanche, who will play the winner of the series between the Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights.

“We definitely knew they were going to come out hard,” Trenin said of the Jets. “We knew they had nothing to save it for.”

Nathan MacKinnon and Devon Toews each had two assists, and Alexandar Georgiev made 33 saves for Colorado.

“Georgiev was outstanding all series,” Trenin said. “I’m really proud of him, the way he just came back and shut up all of the haters.”

Georgiev started all five games and bounced back from a Game 1 loss.

“We had great defense and I thought the first couple of periods were maybe a little too cautious,” Georgiev said of Game 5. “But, in the third, we knew they’d try to open it up, and we scored a big goal, and just kept playing smart.”

Kyle Connor, Josh Morrissey and Tyler Toffoli scored for the Jets. Connor Hellebuyck stopped 26 shots.

For the Jets, it’s a second straight postseason exit in Round 1 after winning Game 1 of both series. In his postgame news conference, coach Rick Bowness was asked what his future was with the team.

“We just lost in the playoffs,” he said. “We’ll figure that out.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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. 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,” said Jarvis, who would add an empty netter before the buzzer.

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? We know what they’re all about: just immense talent, coached really well, good goaltending. What don’t they have?” he said. “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.”