Oilers 1 Canucks 2

There isn't a lot in it, yet. You hear that, and you tell yourself that the season is young, but when you watch a hockey game, whether it's in October or December or March, you still want to leap to conclusions based on what looks good enough, and what doesn't.

So take this for what it's worth: the Edmonton Oilers don't get outworked very often, and the Vancouver Canucks -- the Canucks! -- outworked them Monday night, in a 2-1 victory that flattered the losers.

The newest version of the second line, with Ryan Kesler joining Brendan Morrison and Jan Bulis, was again held pointless. But not for lack of creating chances, not for lack of hustle and not for lack of backchecking.

Coach Alain Vigneault was so impressed, he had the three out to kill the final 40 seconds of the 2-1 game with the faceoff at the Canucks blueline and the Edmonton net empty.

On a night when the club hoped the blueliner could contribute, Salo did much more than that in a 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers at GM Place.

After sitting out one game to rehab a groin strain, Salo was solid defensively and opportunistic offensively. He not only scored the winning goal, he drew two penalties and helped limit the Oilers' top line to just two shots and one scoring chance in the third period.

1. Sami Salo (VAN): After missing the Canucks home opener, Sami came back and made a big difference. He logged 23:11 minutes of ice-time, helped slow down Joffrey Lupul's and Ryan Smyth's line, and scored the game-winning goal.
2. Dwayne Roloson (EDM): Stopped 35 of 37 Canucks shots, many of them good quality ones.
3. Ryan Kesler (VAN): Didn't score a point but did a lot of the dirty work on a line with Brendan Morrison and Jan Bulis. He battled hard in the corners and in front of the net, and threw four quality shots on Roloson.

• The Canucks penalty-killing has come around since the start of the season and has now killed 12 consecutive man-advantages.
• Because of his penchant for dangling the puck and not shooting, we have our own version of the Oilers' Ales Hemsky. His name is Jan Bulis. Shoot the puck, Jan!
• About the only guy I was a bit disappointed in was Trevor Linden. Hard to criticize Trev but he looked out of synch out there tonight.

• VCOE was impressed at the 'Nucks' effort.
• The Chief Canuck decided to go to the game on a whim and gives us his good, bad and ugly.
• Loxy, the Vancouver-based Oilers fan, was hoping for that the Oilers would kick the Canucks' collective asses. Alas, it didn't happen.

• Official Scoresheet
• Official Stat Sheet
• Shift Chart