Music: {allcanada} Hansen and Luongo lift Canucks over Oilers

Sunday, October 2, 2011

{allcanada} Hansen and Luongo lift Canucks over Oilers

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP)—Jannik Hansen (notes) scored the go-ahead goal 5:36 into the third period and Roberto Luongo (notes) made 28 saves to lead the Vancouver Canucks to a 4-1 exhibition win over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night.

Cody Hodgson (notes) started the scoring on a first period power play after Luongo turned aside three early odd-man rushes, and finished it with his second goal into an empty net with 1.2 seconds left. That came shortly after Mikael Samuelsson's (notes) goal made it 3-1 with 44.8 seconds remaining.

Magnus Paajarvi (notes) scored on a power play and Nikolai Khabibulin (notes) stopped 25 shots for the Oilers, who left several regulars out of the lineup after playing in Minnesota the night before.

The Canucks finished the preseason 3-5-0, but were dressing their top players for just the second time Saturday. Coming off a Game 7 loss in the Stanley Cup finals that saw many players appear in more than 100 games through mid June, Vancouver rested its regulars through the exhibition season, focusing on systems play and conditioning during lengthy practice sessions instead.

The young Oilers finished exhibition play 5-3-0 and were led in scoring by 18-year-old Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (notes), the Vancouver-area native selected first overall in the summer draft. But they are also running out of healthy defensemen after impressive rookie Taylor Fedun (notes) suffered a complex fracture to his femur after crashing on an icing play in an exhibition win in Minnesota on Friday night.

Fedun, a Princeton grad signed as a free agent during the summer, remains in Minnesota after successful surgery while the Oilers traveled to Vancouver. Edmonton also lost defensemen Taylor Chorney (notes) (knee) and Ladislav Smid (notes) (shoulder) to less serious injuries Friday, and top blue liner Ryan Whitney (notes) (ankle) has yet to play and is questionable for the season opener.

Hodgson, who will center Vancouver's second line while Ryan Kesler (notes) recovers from offseason hip surgery, tipped a power play point shot past Khabibulin low on the glove side.

Paajarvi tied it on a man-advantage scramble, finally putting the puck in shortly after Luongo was knocked onto his back and into the net five minutes into the second period.

Hansen took a pass from Manny Malhotra (notes), back after eye surgery in the summer, out of the corner and snapped it under Khabibulin s blocker form the slot.