The Vancouver Canucks peppered Cam Talbot with 40 shots on the night, but he held down the fort as the Edmonton Oilers secured a 2-0 shutout victory Friday night.
Jordan Eberle would score his 22nd on the year in the second period, and Matt Hendricks doubled it in the third period with his insurance goal.
The shutout was Talbot’s 11th NHL shutout and Edmonton’s second consecutive win.
“We knew we were going to have to weather the storm and we did a good job in front of the net boxing out, tying up sticks and getting to rebounds, so credit goes to the guys in front of me,” said Talbot, who has a 2.50 goals-against average and .919 save percentage in 50 games. “I feel more confident than I have pretty much my whole career and I’m giving the guys a chance to win, and they’ve been playing some pretty solid hockey in front of me.”
Jacob Markstrom made 23 saves for the Canucks who have now dropped three straight games.
In the first period the Oilers would get the best chances, but failed to score anything on Markstrom who had a stellar game despite the loss.
“I thought we had some really good chances to score, but with 40 shots, we should have created some more Grade A chances,” Canucks captain Henrik Sedin said. “It was a good game chance-wise for us, but with the amount of puck possession we had, I think we should have created more traffic in front of [Talbot].”
Edmonton took a 1-0 lead at 11:10 of the second, when Eberle scored following a turnover just outside of the Vancouver blue line.
Canucks defenseman Dan Hamhuis’ outlet pass was intercepted by Connor McDavid, who took the puck back into the zone on an odd-man rush and slid a pass over to Eberle on the left wing. Eberle beat Markstrom with a low shot between the pads.
Hendricks put Edmonton up 2-0 at 6:03 of the third period, banging a rebound past Markstrom following a long shot from by the point by defenseman Jordan Oesterle for his 4th on the year.
In the third, the Canucks outshot the Oilers by a large margin, but failed to score on any of their opportunities.
Up next: The Canucks host the St. Louis Blues Saturday night at Rogers Arena.
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