GAME RECAP: Oilers 6, Canucks 0

VANCOUVER, BC – Great six-cess.

The Edmonton Oilers scored all six of their goals in the second period at Rogers Arena on Saturday night, receiving pairs from Jack Roslovic and Kasperi Kapanen while goaltender Tristan Jarry locked down his second shutout of the season with 31 saves in a 6-0 win over the Vancouver Canucks.

After going 109:59 without a goal over their previous five periods, the Oilers broke out in a big way by putting six past Canucks netminder Nikita Tolopilo during a 13:23 stretch of the middle frame after Roslovic kicked things off with his first of two goals on the night just over three minutes into the stanza.

Zach Hyman notched a power-play goal for his 17th goal of the season, and then Kapanen and Roslovic alternated turns finding the scoresheet before Vasily Podkolzin wrapped up the scoring by notching his 11th goal of the season against his former team with 3:26 left in a dominant frame from the Oilers.

The Oilers scored six goals in a period for the 12th time in franchise history, and for the first time since doing it against these very same Canucks (in Edmonton) during the last game they did it on Apr. 27, 2017, when they tallied six goals in the third period of a 7-2 victory.

"I thought the team effort was great," Darnell Nurse said. "Once we got on the front foot, it was shift after shift, and we came in waves. Up and down the lineup, there were a lot of contributions, and obviously, Jarrs made some big saves for us as well."

Kasperi Kapanen's pair of goals lifted the Finnish forward's tallies over his last seven games since returning from injury to seven points (3G, 4A), while Roslovic ended a seven-game pointless streak with two goals as part of a strong night alongside Isaac Howard and Matt Savoie on Edmonton's third line.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins recorded two assists in his hometown to mark his 999th career game, with the longest-tenured Oilers player set to be celebrated for reaching 1,000 games when the Blue & Orange host the St. Louis Blues at Rogers Place on Sunday for the second of a back-to-back.

"It's perfect timing, really, for him to be able to celebrate 999 here, and then do everything tomorrow," Nurse said. "Obviously, such an important part of not just our team, but the organization and helping our team get to the point that it's at now. He's been a leader on and off the ice, and it's a fun weekend to be a part of and soak it all in."

FIRST PERIOD

Goals were proving hard to come by for the Blue & Orange over their last five periods.

But that was only going to last for so long.

"We felt decent about Thursday, but when you don't get the result, obviously there's lots you feel like you can change," Nurse said. "And luckily we didn't. We just kind of stuck with our game and played. It started defensively, and once we got into the o-zone, we created chances and played off one another, not forcing things. So there are a lot of good things, and we gotta keep it going into tomorrow."

After the Oilers were shut out by the Islanders on Thursday and failed to find the scoresheet during the first period against the Canucks, their search for a goal stretched to more than five periods and 106:48 of total time, dating back to Zach Hyman's power-play tally in the middle frame of Tuesday's 4-3 overtime loss to Nashville.

Both teams had chances in the first five minutes to open the scoring, but it was Matt Savoie's breakaway opportunity near the 12-minute mark that stood out after the winger chipped it past Victor Mancini at the Oilers' blueline before being tracked down by the Canucks' defenceman to prevent him from shooting.

Inside eight minutes left in the opening frame, Aatu Raty had his dangerous redirection from the slot stopped in its tracks by Tristan Jarry, leading to Zach Hyman racing up the right side to set up Connor McDavid as he was wrapped up on the rush by Marcus Pettersson, looking to the officials for a holding call.

The captain was playing alongside his regular linemate Hyman and Vasily Podkolzin – the former Canucks forward who was elevated to the top line in the absence of Leon Draisaitl after Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was tapped to centre the second line in his 999th career game in his hometown on Saturday.

Draisaitl will be away from the team until later next week as he returns to Germany to deal with a family illness.

"When you're missing a key player, somebody really important to your team, it just seems like everyone just steps their game up," Knoblauch said. "They galvanize and they play together, and that was tonight. Throughout our lineup, how many guys really played one of their best games? It was tonight.

"Obviously, we're missing Leon, and we definitely like to have him here, and we're thinking about him and his family and what's going on right now. But we'll definitely welcome him back."

The Oilers' third line, consisting of Isaac Howard, Jack Roslovic and Matt Savoie, was their only forward unit that went unchanged from Thursday's shutout loss to the Islanders, and the trio looked the likeliest for them to score in the opening 20 minutes on numerous combinations that didn't result in a goal.

"Just stay with it," Roslovic said post-game. "The opportunity is there for us. We've been playing well. They're full of energy and ready to go, so they never lack that... Get everything to the net. We've been really simplifying our game, so it's been good."

SECOND PERIOD

Well... that's one way to end a goalless streak.

The Oilers weren't about to go six straight periods without scoring, and they made sure of it by exploding for six goals in a dominant middle frame where they outshot the Canucks 17-9 and gave themselves plenty of breathing room with a 6-0 lead that was led by a pair from Jack Roslovic and Kasperi Kapanen.

"I think things just went our way," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "I thought overall, the first period was pretty good, and the second period we just continued to make our plays, and we were able to capitalize early. Jarry made some big saves for us, and then you could just see a deflated team after we got that second goal.

"It's hard when things are going that way and you end up trailing. It's hard to get out of it when you're in that. I've been in that situation, and I think our guys just continue to play their game."

Edmonton's goalless streak officially came to an end at 109:59 when Roslovic's attempted backhand pass off the rush meant for Curtis Lazar ended up finding its way through under Vancouver netminder Nikita Tolopilo as Lazar came in contact with his skate just outside the crease 3:11 into the period.

The Canucks' bench took a long look at the replay to decide whether to challenge the play for goalie interference, but they ultimately made the wrong decision when the officials upheld it, giving the Oilers the chance to immediately double the advantage with a delay-of-game penalty.

And that's exactly what the Oilers did after Zach Hyman got a friendly bounce to score his 17th goal of the season, making it 2-0 when he threw a backhand from just outside the crease towards the back post before it deflected in off the skate of Filip Hronek, marking his fifth goal in his last six contests.

Celebrating Hockey Day in Canada, Hyman is now tied for the fourth-most points all-time on this celebratory day with Erik Karlsson and Daniel Alfredsson, having tallied 14 points across those games. The winger trails only Daniel Sedin (18), Jason Spezza (15) and Jarome Iginla (15).

Almost five minutes later, winger Kasperi Kapanen continued his productive stretch since returning from a 36-game injury absence last week by notching his first of two goals in the second period on Saturday with a breakaway snipe that made it 3-0 for the Oilers with 8:18 remaining in the frame.

Defenceman Ty Emberson picked up a loose puck in the Oilers' zone and fired a sweet breakout feed to Nugent-Hopkins, who then moved it to Kapanen behind Elias Pettersson in the neutral zone for a breakaway that he buried emphatically by picking his spot clean off the post to put it past Tolopilo.

"You obviously want to look at the goalie a little bit and see if he's far out or if he's kind of more in the net, and I think eventually, for me at least, you just decide on a move, or you pick a spot and kind of just stick to it," Kapanen said. "I thought it didn't go in for a second, but I'm happy it did."

Nugent-Hopkins picked up his first of two assists in the frame en route to a multi-point performance in his hometown for his 999th NHL game.

"He's a phenomenal hockey player, but he's an even better guy in person," Kapanen added. "So we're obviously excited to celebrate 1,000 tomorrow, and I'm sure for him to kind of come back to Vancouver, he played a hell of a game today, and so did Freddy. Those two goals that I scored, that's all both those of those guys, so it was easy for me to put the puck in the net."

Remember how Edmonton's third line had nothing to show for their strong opening frame? Well, that was reversed in a big way during the second period after combining for four points in the frame, including the clean sweep on the scoresheet for Roslovic's second goal with 5:29 left before the intermission.

"We've really been trying hard," Roslovic said about his line. "It's not just tonight – it's been the last handful of games that we've been really working at trying to get one to go in, and I think we've played really well. We saw a few going tonight, so hopefully that gives us all a little bit more confidence."

On a four-on-two rush for the Oilers, the puck passed through the hands of Savoie and Howard as Roslovic split the middle between the two Vancouver defenders to accept the perfect back-door pass from Howard that he slid under the left pad of Tolopilo to make it 4-0 for the Oilers.

"He's very skilled. People haven't seen it yet," Roslovic said. "We're just trying to really find the right balance between letting that skill shine and playing the game the way it needs to be played for our team."

Roslovic now has four goals over his last 10 games, thanks to his second multi-goal game and sixth multi-point game of the season.

It was only 37 seconds later when the Oilers made it 5-0 on Kapanen's own second goal of the night, being fed out front by Nugent-Hopkins from below the goal line before firing it past Tolopilo for his third goal of the campaign.

The tally increased the Finnish forward's returns over the past seven games since returning from injury to seven points (3G, 4A).

"He worked really hard and was out for about a month, and we were anticipating him coming back before he re-injured it," Knoblauch said. "But he stuck with it, and he was ready for it. We were definitely ready for him to come back, and we knew he was going to be a boost to our lineup.

"We didn't exactly know how much of a boost it would be just because it takes a while to find your game again after you miss a long stretch like that, so it's nice to see him playing a really good all-around game and scoring some goals."

Thanks to Nugent-Hopkins' second assist, the Burnaby product now has at least a point in each of his last four visits (0G, 5A) to his hometown and 10 points (1G, 9A) over his last nine games as he now looks ahead to being celebrated for hitting 1,000 career games tomorrow against the Blues at Rogers Place.

"He's a very quiet leader who leads by example and is exceptionally humble and incredibly talented," Roslovic said. "So it's very cool to see him play this many games. For anyone to do it in the league is impressive. To do it all on one team is saying something, so he's done a lot for the city."

If it wasn't bad enough for the Canucks already, winger Vasily Podkolzin added insult to injury by scoring against his former team to make it 6-0.

The goal would go down as unassisted, but McDavid made a great zone exit before attacking and having the puck poked away by Hronek straight to Podkolzin, who picked his spot short side and under the arm of Tolopilo for his 11th goal of the campaign, capping off a crazy period of scoring.

The Russian forward now has five points (2G, 3A) over his last seven games, and with 11 goals and 21 points on the season, he is now just three goals and five points shy of matching his career high in both categories from the 2021-22 season as a member of the Canucks.

THIRD PERIOD

All that was left to do was lock down the shutout for Tristan Jarry.

Despite having a six-goal lead provided by his Oilers teammates, Jarry was still full value for his shutout by making 31 saves on Saturday, including 15 from the Canucks over the final 20 minutes, which included a penalty kill with under seven minutes left in regulation.

"I've seen it before in Pittsburgh, and I think guys have played against him a bunch," Kapanen said of his former teammate with the Penguins. "We all know he's a tremendous goalie, so he was incredible today and a big reason why we won."

"He's very calm, which I think makes the team calm when you have a guy like that. :ike I said, I've seen it before, so it obviously makes us play that much better."

Edmonton cruised through the third period to lock down the clean sheet for their netminder after being shut out in the game before by the Islanders.

"The second period was really good for us, and I thought throughout the game we played well," Kapanen said. "Even the Islanders game that we lost, I thought as a whole, we played a pretty solid game. So we just want to continue this momentum, and tomorrow's going to be a tough game. Back-to-backs are always hard, so it'll be tough.

"But I like where our team's at right now. Everybody's stepping up. We miss Leo, and we wish him the best, as he and his family are going through a lot right now, so obviously, we were playing for him as well. A big win today."