Hurricanes stay hot on road by blanking Islanders

Pyotr Kochetkov stopped all 16 shots he faced Saturday night for the visiting Carolina Hurricanes, who beat the New York Islanders, 3-0, in Elmont, N.Y.

It was the second shutout of the season and of his career for Kochetkov, who recorded his first NHL shutout when he recorded 27 saves in the Hurricanes' 3-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Nov. 14.

Paul Stastny scored in the second while Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Jordan Staal added goals in the third for the Hurricanes, who improved to 4-0-1 on their current six-game road trip.

Goalie Ilya Sorokin made 27 saves for the Islanders, who have dropped four of six (2-4-0).

Both teams appeared to be feeling the effects of their recent schedules during a quiet first two periods, a stretch in which they combined for just 26 shots (Hurricanes 16, Islanders 10).

New York outlasted the New Jersey Devils 6-4 on Friday, when the Devils played with an extra attacker in lieu of goalie Akira Schmid during the final seven-plus minutes. The Hurricanes' lengthy road trip, meanwhile, is taking them to three different time zones.

Carolina went ahead 7:06 into the second. Martin Necas skated around the back of the Islanders' net and passed to Brady Skjei, who was at the blue line. Skjei immediately fired a slap shot that glanced off Sorokin and bounced to Andrei Svechnikov, who'd been battling for position with New York defenseman Alexander Romanov. With Sorokin leaning toward the Carolina right winger, Svechnikov backhanded the puck across the crease to Stastny, who flicked the puck beyond Sorokin's glove for his first goal since April 16, when he was playing with the Winnipeg Jets.

The Hurricanes put the game away with two goals in a span of fewer than five minutes in the third. Brent Burns retrieved the puck after Necas won a faceoff against Zach Parise deep in the Islanders' zone and fired a shot that glanced off the stick of Kotkaniemi, who was battling for position with Sebastian Aho, and fluttered past Sorokin at the 4:05 mark.

Jordan Martinook stole the puck from Noah Dobson behind the Islanders' net to begin the sequence that ended with Staal taking a wraparound pass from Martinook and beating Sorokin with 11:11 remaining.