The Vancouver Canucks wanted nothing more than to vault over two teams into first place in the Northwest Division. But one of those teams, the Edmonton Oilers, refused to let them do it.
Dwayne Roloson made 36 saves in backstopping the visiting Oilers to a 4-0 victory over the Canucks before a capacity crowd of 18,630 at General Motors Place.
Joffrey Lupul whoops it up with Petr Sykora after scoring in a 4-0 win.
(Richard Lam/Canadian Press)
Edmonton now tops the division with 30 points, two more than the idle Minnesota Wild and three up on Vancouver with two games in hand.
"We were looking at today as almost a must-win," said Oilers forward Joffrey Lupul, who scored an unassisted goal.
Roloson rebounded nicely from Saturday's 4-0 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets at Rexall Place, in which he was yanked early.
"You just have to look forward and be ready to give your guys a chance to win," he said. "And that's what I did."
Video review upheld a late save by Roloson on a wraparound from Andrew Burrows that preserved his second this season and 20th in the NHL.
"We played well defensively," Roloson said. "We didn't give up a lot of grade-A chances compared to what we have in the past.
"Guys kept them to the outside. And any time they had a grade-A chance, they were rushed to get the shot."
Shawn Horcoff, Daniel Tjarnqvist and Raffi Torres supplied the rest of the offensive support as the Oilers (14-10-2) halted a a three-game losing skid.
Torres also contributed one assist, while Petr Sykora had two.
Edmonton was minus forward Ryan Smyth, its leading sniper with 16 goals.
Smyth is sidelined indefinitely because of a broken right thumb suffered during the first period of Saturday's setback.
Ales Hemsky (shoulder) also sat out.
"When Smitty and Hemer go down, it throws more minutes around for everybody and we have to find goals elsewhere," Horcoff said. "There s been a lot of talk about our offensive depth this season and tonight was a big test of it."
Roberto Luongo stopped only 14 shots in a losing cause for the Canucks (13-14-1), now a woeful 2-7-1 against division rivals.
"Our process was good," Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault said. "We just couldn't score again."
Vancouver finished 0-for-5 on power-play opportunities and failed to score at least three goals for the 14th time in its last 16 outings.
Moreover, the Canucks lost three players to injury.
Taylor Pyatt, who ranks second in team scoring with nine goals, was knocked into the boards by Jarrett Stoll and seemed to be favouring his left arm as he departed in the first period.
Sami Salo headed to the dressing room in the second period with an undisclosed upper body injury, while Rick Rypien also left in the second with a lower body injury.
Odd goal opens scoring
Edmonton scored on three of its first six shots, starting with Horcoff's power-play goal 8:13 into the opening period.
When Horcoff wound up to take a slapshot from the slot, Kevin Bieksa of the Canucks reached out with his stick and tipped the puck, which struck fellow defenceman Willie Mitchell before fluttering past Luongo.
"It was a lucky goal," Horcoff said of his third of the season. "But lately, I have had some good quality chances that didn't go in, so it was nice."
Tjarnqvist made it 2-0 with his second, on a point shot that grazed a leg en route to the back of the net 58 seconds into the second period.
A mere 34 seconds later, Lupul eluded defenceman Lukas Krajicek in the corner and skated out front to beat Luongo with a shot from the slot for his ninth.
Torres later completed the scoring with his fifth, a breakaway goal at 3:54 of the third period.
With files from Sports Network
