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Power play lifts Oilers past Canucks

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:43 AM VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Ticker) -- Shawn Horcoff and defenseman Sheldon Souray both scored on two-man advantages in the second period as the Edmonton Oilers held on for a 3-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Friday.

Dwayne Roloson made 26 saves and Marc Pouliot opened the scoring for the Oilers, who have won back-to-back contests following a three-game losing streak.

"Not the way we want to get it done, but we'll take it," Horcoff said. "It's a good game for us, a good road game. Second period, played great. PP was good, PK came up big when we needed it. Just a good win."

Ales Hemsky and blue-liner Lubomir Visnovsky had two assists apiece for Edmonton, which has won three of its last four road contests.

Mason Raymond and Kyle Wellwood each netted a goal and Curtis Sanford turned aside 20 shots for the Canucks, who have lost three of their last four games after defeating the Oilers, 4-2, nine days ago.

"We came out strong in the third," Sanford said. "I guess it's a good thing to maybe take it into the next game. It's definitely something to build on."

After Pouliot's goal at the 4:27 mark of the middle session, Edmonton built a 3-0 edge by capitalizing on Vancouver's penalties.

With Daniel Sedin and defenseman Mattias Ohlund in the penalty box, Hemsky made a perfect pass from the goalline to Horcoff, who fired a wrist shot past Sanford at 8:31.

"That's just Hemmer," Horcoff said of the pass. "Willie (Mitchell) was hurt there, I know he got hit with the (puck) and he was laboring a bit. At first, it was tight to the net and once he turned his head to focus on Hemmer, I just tried to get open to the slot and he just made a perfect pass."

The Oilers took advantage of another 5-on-3 power play later in the session, when Souray took a pass from Hemsky in the high slot and blasted a slap shot between the pads of a screened Sanford with 3:14 left.

"We took advantage of the power plays that we had in the second period, particular the 5-on-3s," Souray said. "We haven't had a lot of those this year, and it seems like the last three or four games we've got a few of them."

"It's tough," Vancouver's Ryan Kesler said of the penalties. "It's one thing to be 5-on-4, it's another thing to be 5-on-3. We're finding ourselves in way too many situations like that and it's showing up on the scoreboard. We have to be more disciplined."

The Canucks battled back into the game after Raymond turned the momentum with 31 seconds left in the second, notching his ninth goal of the season after his attempted centering pass was blocked.

Wellwood cut the deficit to 3-2 at 1:46 of the final period, but Vancouver failed to get the equalizer despite having a 14-3 shot advantage in the third.

"Obviously we got down 3-0 pretty early," Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa said. "We're not happy with that, but we're happy with the second half of the game and the way we played in the third period when we started coming off the walls and generating some chances."