Canucks 0 - 4 Oilers
Final
  for this game

Hall notches hat trick as Oilers blank Canucks

Mar 31, 2013 - 6:31 AM Edmonton, AB (Sports Network) - Taylor Hall notched a hat trick in the first period and a quick jump to the game led the Edmonton Oilers to a 4-0 win over the Vancouver Canucks.

Devan Dubnyk notched 23 saves for his sixth career shutout for the Oilers, who have won three straight for the first time this season to get to 35 points and are one point back of St. Louis for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Cory Schneider was quickly yanked from the start as he gave up two goals on two shots for the Canucks, who had a six-game winning streak snapped. Roberto Luongo finished the game in net and gave up two goals on 22 shots.

"You know, two shots, two goals. It's a terrible start to put your team in a hole like that," Schneider said. "We plan on being prepared and it starts with me in net and talk about making a big save or two to get you team in it, settle down a little bit and I didn't do that. It costs us, put us in a hole and we were never able to recover from it."

It was all Edmonton in the first eight minutes of the game and it got started 16 seconds in when Hall flew down the right wing and let fly with a wrister past Schneider.

Edmonton's second shot also bore fruit as a slap shot from Ladislav Smid found the back of the net at the 2:05 mark to chase Schneider.

Hall scored his second of the game 38 seconds later with a wrister from the left circle and capped the hat trick at the 7:53 mark on the power play when he stuffed the puck in from the right side.

It was the fastest hat trick by an Oiler to start a game, surpassing the mark of 12:38 by Wayne Gretzky against Quebec in 1986.

"Any time you can break the Great One's record, it's pretty special. It's just one of those games where everything I shot at the start went in and then you saw at the end of the game everything we shot didn't go in, so it was definitely huge to get a big start like that and after that we played really well," Hall said.

The second period passed without a goal as Luongo made three stops and Dubnyk turned away eight shots.

Dubnyk made five saves in the final period to finish off the shutout.

Game Notes

It was the three fastest goals to start a game in Edmonton history, passing the mark of 3:25 set on Dec. 16, 1981 against the Colorado Rockies ... Edmonton hosts Calgary on Monday ... Vancouver plays in San Jose on Monday ... Edmonton forward Sam Gagner played in his 400th game ... Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had two assists for the Oilers.






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