RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes average the most shots in the NHL, and Filip Gustavsson is almost unbeatable when he faces a plethora of pucks.

But this dream matchup for the Wild goaltender never came to fruition.

That’s because the Wild players in front of him held Carolina in check, the 4-0 victory Saturday night at Lenovo Center one of their cleanest efforts of the season to sweep their road trip with their third consecutive victory and fifth in six games.

Mats Zuccarello had two goals and an assist and Marco Rossi a career-high four assists, while Gustavsson finished with a 20-save shutout for his third of the season — a timid workload for the Hurricanes, who have registered at least 40 shots in a game six times and even boast a 50-shot performance.

They had a glorious opportunity to wind-up early because just 1 minute, 32 seconds after the opening faceoff, Joel Eriksson Ek was sent to the penalty box for 4 minutes for high sticking, but Carolina failed to capitalize and tested Gustavsson only once.

That was the Hurricanes’ lone shot for nearly eight minutes, their next a try by Andrei Svechnikov that Gustavsson gloved down, and the downtime didn’t affect Gustavsson: He was sharp later in the first, denying a deke from Seth Jarvis with his right pad before later stymieing Jarvis again on a 2-on-1.

Meanwhile, the Wild were opportunistic at the other end.

Matt Boldy worked a 50-50 puck to Rossi, who set up Zuccarello for a one-timer at 13:03. (The Wild improved to 16-5-2 when scoring first.)

Then on their second of back-to-back power plays, Eriksson Ek tipped in a Zuccarello shot from the right point 11:30 into the second period to double the Wild’s lead on Eriksson Ek’s first goal in 18 games.

The power play went 1 for 3, but it was a solid 4-for-4 showing by the penalty kill that was vital — especially on that first, lengthy short-handed situation while one of their penalty killers in Eriksson Ek was unavailable.

One puck did elude Gustavsson, when the rebound from a save bounced off defenseman Declan Chisholm’s back and tumbled into the Wild net.

But the Wild challenged to check if Carolina was off-side before the goal, and the Hurricanes were: Jackson Blake was still in the offensive zone going for a line change when Carolina brought the puck over the Wild blue line.

The Wild are now 5 for 5 on coach’s challenges this season.

With 10:40 left in the third period, Boldy also ditched his goalless skid, burying a breakaway put in motion by Rossi to snap his nine-game dry spell with his 14th.

Ben Jones had what would have been his first NHL goal overturned later in the third period when the Hurricanes successfully challenged for goaltender interference on Pyotr Kochetkov by Jones.

Once Carolina pulled Kochetkov for an extra attacker, the Wild took advantage again, this time an empty-netter by Zuccarello with 2:46 to go that Boldy (three points) and Rossi factored into.

This was the first four-point game of Rossi’s career, who has a team-high nine points in the five games the Wild have played since Kirill Kaprizov was sidelined with a lower-body injury.

Kochetkov totaled 24 saves during a much busier night than Gustavsson.

He made just three stops during the third to preserve his ninth career shutout and extend his road point streak to nine games (7-0-2), joining Devan Dubnyk as the only Wild netminders to have a run at least that length.

As for the Wild, at 15-3-3 they continue to roll on the road with the league’s best record away from home.

©2025 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC