Canucks 7, Oilers 3
The Vancouver Canucks wasted little time taking advantage of a tired Edmonton team coming off a tough loss. Christian Ehrhoff, Alex Burrows, Mason Raymond and Daniel Sedin scored in the first 8:25 to pace Vancouver to a 7-3 victory over the Oilers on Saturday night. Tanner Glass scored with 16.7 seconds left in the first period as the Canucks jumped quickly on an injury-ravaged team that played the night before. "We attacked them right away and got rewarded for it," said goalie Roberto Luongo, who made 31 saves to help the Canucks won for the fourth time in five games. "We wanted to get on them right away. We knew they were a tired team." Colin McDonald, with his first NHL goal in his second game, and Dustin Penner scored 64 seconds apart early in the second period to pull the Oilers within two. But defenseman Alex Edler scored his first of the season on a power play 5 minutes later, and Mikael Samuelsson added another power-play goal midway through the third period as Vancouver went 4-for-5 with the man advantage. "We knew they're a proud team over there and they came out and threw what they had at us and we weathered the storm for the most part and came back and made them pay for a couple bad penalties," said Ryan Kesler, who had three assists. "Our power play did a good job of making them second guess taking runs at us and taking those penalties." Gilbert Brule also scored for the Oilers, who started a six-game trip with their third straight loss. Missing nine regulars to injury and illness, Edmonton has just four wins in the last 18 games after starting the season 6-2-1. Jeff Deslauriers made his sixth straight start in goal despite playing Friday night in a 5-4 shootout loss to San Jose. But even with No. 1 Nikolai Khabibulin out with back spasms, Deslauriers didn't last long, pulled after four goals on just 11 shots. Devan Dubnyk made his NHL debut in relief. The Oilers blew a couple late leads in a demoralizing loss to the league-leading Sharks on Friday, and the Canucks wasted little time adding to their misery. Ehrhoff opened the scoring 3:16 in with a power-play point shot, and Burrows doubled the lead with a nice individual effort less than 2 minutes later. "We actually had a couple of good shifts to start the game and then bang, it was like a deluge," coach Pat Quinn said. "And the harder we tried the worse we got." Deslauriers didn't help his cause by taking a roughing penalty after Burrows' goal for punching Glass with his glove. Raymond scored on the ensuing power play, and Daniel Sedin added his first of the season 81 seconds later to make it 4-0 and end Deslauriers'night just 8:25 into the game. "I'll take the blame on me 100 percent," Deslauriers said. "I got involved a bit too much emotionally, which is not good, and took a stupid penalty that put my team in a worse scenario." Playing his third game since missing 18 with a broken foot, Daniel Sedin started the play that led to Burrows' goal, working the puck out of the corner with twin brother Henrik. Burrows then pulled the puck from his backhand to his forehand while spinning through the crease before tucking it in. Burrows has goals in consecutive games after only scoring once - into an empty net - in the previous 18, a slump that coincided mostly with Daniel Sedin's injury. Less than 4 minutes later, Daniel finished a nice give-and-go behind the net with Henrik, who had two assists, getting the puck back in front and lifting a backhand over the shoulder of Deslauriers. "My hands are pretty close," Sedin said. "It's mostly timing but I'm right there." Dubnyk took over after Sedin's goal and stopped 21 of 24 shots. NOTES: The Oilers came in atop the NHL with 155 man-games lost to injury after learning the day before top forward Ales Hemsky needs season-ending shoulder surgery. Vancouver had lost 119 man-games, but top-six forward Pavol Demitra is the only regular among the three currently injured. ... Glass scored for the second straight game, just the fifth goal of his 65-game NHL career. ... Edler's goal was his first in 33 games dating to last season.