In Vancouver, the Edmonton Oilers’ troubles continued on Monday night with a dismal 6-2 loss to the Canucks.
The offense and defense have abandoned the Oilers.
It started off well enough with Mattias Ekholm hitting off the power play for a 1-0 lead to the Oilers at 6:42 of the first.
The Canucks replied with three straight goals in the opening frame to take a 3-1 lead in the middle stanza.
Brock Boeser hit for a double in the win.
The Oilers had 20 shots in the first, and had only the one goal to show for it.
Thatcher Demko made 40 saves on the night for the win.
“Demko is like a smelling salt,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “We woke up after he made about five, six, seven unreal saves, and then we started kind of to wake up.”
The Canucks improved to 9-2-1.
The Vancouver strikers in the first erased any sense of building off the momentum of that early goal.
“Right now, it just feels like whatever we do, the last two or three games we’ve had great starts, and for whatever reason, we find ourselves in a deficit going into the intermission,” Ekholm said. “It’s frustrating. I don’t know if you can play a better 15 minutes.”
Quinn Hughes tied it, 1-1, at 11:30, the puck deflected the Oilers’ Vincent Desharnais directly into the net.
“We’re just playing really good hockey collectively,” Hughes said.
“We know them very well, and to beat them three times within 12 games to start the year, it’s huge. And to go 14 points up on them (in the Pacific Division), it’s a little early to be looking at stuff like that, but we were in that position the last couple years, and it’s hard to get back.”
Pius Suter put the Canucks up, 2-1, at 13:22, and Brock Boeser extended the advantage to 3-at 14:52 off the power-play.
Leon Draisaitl broke a goal drought with his fifth of the season in the middle frame to get the Oilers to within one at 3-2.
“Obviously frustrating,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. “I felt like we did a lot of good things in the first period and found ourselves down and chasing things.”
The Oilers dropped to 2-8-1.
Vancouver responded three minutes later with a marker from Nils Hoglander for a 4-2 advantage.
The Canucks scored twice in the third to make it an ugly 6-2 final for the Oilers.
J.T. Miller scored off the power play at 7:51 for a 5-2 lead.
Boeser hit for his double with another power-play strike at 19:04 for the 6-2 final.
“It’s going well, but when my line is matched up against the other top line, that’s our main goal. We take a lot of pride in that,” Boeser said. “That’s kind of all I was worried about, and it’s always nice to contribute and help the team win.”
Use CodePHN15 Canucks rolling, while Oilers struggle in all three zones
Stuart Skinner made 30 saves in the loss.
“I think I can do a lot better to help my team out,” Skinner said. “I’m the goalie and my job is to stop pucks, and I let in six.”
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