Vancouver Canucks Earn Victory over Edmonton

The Vancouver Canucks arrived in Edmonton hoping for a win and got exactly that after defeating the Oilers 4-2 on Thursday. The win put Vancouver above .500, but for Coach Travis Green, the job is far from done.

Antoine Roussel and Elias Pettersson each scored for Vancouver, as did Brock Boeser and Tyler Motte. Earning assists were Nikolay Goldobin with two and Pettersson, Roussel, Jay Beagle, Bo Horvat and Derrick Pouliot with one assist each.

The Vancouver Canucks improved their season to 18-18-4 and have won 7 of their last 10 games.That is good news for sports betting sites such as Bodog, a Canadian favoured sportsbook. New punters will be welcomed with up to $200 in bonuses when registering, and For sports punters, that is good news after Vancouver struggled in the opening past of the season.

Travis Green, head coach for the Vancouver Canucks said the team has always spoken about how they want to play adding,

” We want to be faster and harder to play against, and we wanted to play meaningful games down the stretch. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves — we’re at .500 right now and we have a long way to go.”

Jacob Markstrom, goalie for the Canucks, had 30 saved last night shared in Green’s sediment stating,

“This is how it should feel. Winning shouldn’t be something you celebrate. It should be normal. Losing should be, like, ‘It sucks.’ Winning should be normal, and in this organization we had that for a long time. That’s what we’re working to get back.”

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Edmonton has now lost their last four games and dropped to 18-16-3. Scoring for the Edmonton Oilers was Leon Draisaiti and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Draisaiti and Darnell Nurse each one assist and Connor McDavid earned two. Edmonton pulled goalie Mikko Koskinen after he gave up four goals and replaced him with Cam Talbot, who had 14 saves for the night. Commenting on the loss, Milan Lucic said,

“It seemed like every mistake that we made in the first period, they made it count. It was a tough one to come back to after the Christmas break. We have dug ourselves a little bit of a hole the last four games and we can’t afford to keep digging it. We have to find a way out, and it isn’t going to take just one or two guys, it is going to take everyone.”

The Canucks took only four minutes to score this first goal after Tyler Motte picked up a pass that he sent past Mikko Koskinen to put Vancouver ahead 1-0 and it didn’t take long for Vancouver to score a second time in the opening period after Pettersson sent the puck to Boeser, who was coming in on the net and scored with a wrist shot to an unprepared Koskinen.

The Oilers managed to get one back at the midway point of the first while on a power play after Connor McDavid sent a pass to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to make it 2-1. With less than a minute left in the first, Vancouver increased the Oilers deficit to 3-1 when Pettersson slipped the puck under the arm of Koskinen to earn his 18th goal of the year.

Roussel scored Vancouver’s fourth in the first with 11 seconds remaining when he picked up the puck at the right side of the net and sent a slap shot past the pads of Koskinen. This was the first time the Canucks have ever scored four goals in an opening period.

Edmonton’s Leon Draisaiti managed to shorten the 4-1 deficit to 4-2 while on another power play midway through the second period but it the Oilers seemed ill-prepared last night and were unable to put up much of a challenge against Vancouver even though they outshot the Canucks 32-20.

The Vancouver Canucks have Friday off before hitting the road to meet the Calgary Flames on Saturday and the New Jersey Devils on Monday. Edmonton will welcome the San Jose Sharks on Saturday and Winnipeg on Monday.