Canucks 2 - 3 Oilers
Final
  for this game

Oilers squeak by Canucks

Oct 26, 2011 - 5:25 AM Edmonton, AB (Sports Network) - Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall each had a goal and an assist, as the Edmonton Oilers held off the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2.

Shawn Horcoff also lit the lamp for the Oilers, who have won two in a row. Nikolai Khabibulin, coming off his first shutout of the season against the Rangers on Saturday, stopped 35-of-37 shots.

"It wasn't pretty, but it was good. We'll take it," Edmonton head coach Tom Renney said.

The news was not all good for Edmonton, which lost defenseman Ryan Whitney to a right knee injury in the first period. Renney said after the game that Whitney has a sprained knee.

Cody Hodgson and Alexandre Burrows scored for the Canucks, who had a two-game winning streak snapped.

Roberto Luongo turned aside 11-of-14 shots before being pulled for Cory Schneider, who made eight saves over the remainder of regulation.

Forward David Booth received nearly 16 minutes of ice time and had three shots in his Vancouver debut. On Saturday, Vancouver acquired Booth and center Steve Reinprecht and a 2013 third-round draft pick from the Florida Panthers in exchange for forwards Mikael Samuelsson and Marco Sturm.

Following a scoreless first period, Eberle put the Oilers on the board just 1:53 into the middle stanza. Hall made a nice crisp pass to Eberle, who rifled a wrister from the left circle past Luongo under the crossbar.

Horcoff made it a 2-0 game at the 5:58 mark. Luongo turned the puck over behind his own net and Ryan Smyth made a centering pass to Horcoff, who tapped the puck home.

Less than a minute later, Hall jammed home a loose puck in the crease to make it 3-0.

"I felt I was moving well and seeing the puck well in the first period and then in a five-minute span they got three quick ones and that was all she wrote," Luongo said.

The Canucks finally got on the board at the 11:29 mark. Alexander Edler issued a tape-to-tape pass to Hodgson, whose wrister from the left circle beat Khabibulin.

Vancouver made it a one-goal contest at the 7:43 mark of the third period. Sami Salo's shot from the top of the right circle was stopped by Khabibulin. Henrik Sedin tried to put home the rebound, but he was stuffed too. Burrows finally beat Khabibulin to make it 3-2.

Schneider was pulled late for the extra attacker, but Khabibulin held strong in net to preserve Edmonton's victory.

Game Notes

The Canucks beat the Oilers, 4-3, on October 15...Booth spent his first six seasons with the Panthers, a club that hasn't made the playoffs since 2000... Oilers rookie Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has five goals and three assists over his first eight career games.






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