The Vancouver Canucks roared out with three early goals in New Jersey and after nearly squandering the lead, finished strongly for an impressive 5-2 victory on Wednesday night to open their road trip.

Defenceman Alex Edler had a goal and two assists, with Daniel Sedin and Alex Burrows each adding a goal and an assist to lead the way offensively for Vancouver (15-12). Jannik Hansen and Sami Salo also scored for the Canucks.

Edler now has two goals and eight assists in his last seven games while Sedin has two goals and three assists in five games since returning from a broken bone in his foot.

Vancouver has now scored 18 goals in winning three of the last four. The Canucks continue their four-game road trip Thursday night in Philadelphia.

While the contest was ballyhooed in some quarters as a battle between likely Canadian Olympic goalies Roberto Luongo and Martin Brodeur, it was a game decided by better neutral zone work by the visitors.

"It's that one game that people see us matched up," Brodeur said of the matchup with Luongo. "It is what it is. For me, it's just a disappointing loss for us."

The Canucks twice caught the Devils on bad line changes, and Vancouver's defencemen were instrumental in creating offensive opportunities for Vancouver. In addition to Edler and Salo, Kevin Bieksa set up the Hansen goal with a pretty pass.

Defencemen had the best early chances to score — Andy Greene for New Jersey and Christian Ehrhoff for the Canucks.

Henrik Sedin set up two goals just over four minutes apart to give the Canucks the early boost.

First, he pivoted and fired the puck toward the net to allow Burrows to tip home his third goal in four games. He then teamed up with brother Daniel to set up Salo, who moved in from the right point and beat Brodeur to the blocker side at almost exactly the midway point of the period.

Daniel Sedin made the Devils pay for the sloppy line change by speeding down the left side and blasting a shot from the left circle into the net at 12:32.

Devils control 2nd period

New Jersey finally awoke and had the lead cut to one goal by period's end.

Niklas Bergfors deflected Greene's shot into the net with just under four minutes left while Travis Zajac found room just inside the left post behind Luongo with just six seconds remaining.

"It was not a good start for us," Devils coach Jacques Lemaire said. "We were lucky to get two goals back and make it a game at that point. We did play better in the second period, but not good enough. It was one night when nothing was working and our guys didn't have the legs they had in other games."

The Devils controlled the second period, and Luongo endured some tough moments.

Not long after having his helmet knocked off by a high-stick from Vladimir Zharkov, the Canucks netminder was forced to stretch and sprawl on consecutive Zach Parise chances from the doorstep.

"It was a bang-bang play," Luongo said. "Once I made the initial save, I was just trying to get some low coverage. Luckily [Parise] didn't have much time to lift it over me."

The final shot in the sequence somehow rolled under Luongo and out of the crease.

"I didn't see it because I was lying on my back," Luongo said. "At that point, I was doing a Dominik Hasek impression."

While Vancouver finished with 10 shots in the second — more than each of the other two periods — it was the stanza in which they had the fewest great scoring chances.

Whatever was said in the Canucks dressing room in the intermission worked, with Edler restoring a two-goal lead just 1:36 into the period.

Mikael Samuelsson caught the Devils napping and found Ryan Kesler down the right side. The forward dropped to Edler for the 4-2 lead.

Kesler hasn't scored in his last 12 games, but he's now set up 12 goals over that span.

Hansen, who scored in the team's loss to San Jose on Sunday, was the beneficiary of the heads-up Bieksa play to make it 5-2 just over five minutes into the third.

The Devils (17-7-1) swarmed on a mid-period power play but could not draw closer. Parise and Dean McAmmond were both denied by Luongo.

New Jersey had won their last three games, outscoring opponents 10-2.

Luongo finished with 26 saves, five more than Brodeur.

With files from The Associated Press