Tanner Pearson recorded his first-career four-point game in the Vancouver Canucks’ 5-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night at Rogers Place.
Connor McDavid and Zack Kassian scored for Edmonton, who dropped their second-straight contest.
Edmonton falls to 16-9-3, and still holds the Pacific Division lead, but the Canucks are now just five points back as they improve to 13-10-4.
WATCH | Tanner Pearson sets new career-high as Canucks down Oilers:
The Canucks power play has been red-hot on their six-game road trip and it propelled Vancouver to an early 1-0 lead.
Jacob Markstrom (8-6-3) made 27 saves in the victory, while Mike Smith (7-7-1) turned aside 33-of-38 shots in the loss for Edmonton.
Graovac, who was called up by the Canucks on Nov. 13 ripped a shot past Smith just 3:31 into the opening period.
Pearson extended Vancouver’s lead to 2-0 with his sixth of the season, and his second short-handed goal in five games. After a flurry of chances by the Oilers, Pearson took the puck down the right wing and tried to centre a pass to J.T. Miller, but the puck went in off of Smith’s pad.
McDavid gave Edmonton life, just 42 seconds later, but the opening frame was dominated by Vancouver, who outshot the Oilers 17-7.
Kassian scored his ninth of the season at the 5:05 mark of the second period to tie the game at 2-2.
Kassian’s goal sparked Edmonton and the gritty winger was looking for more on the power play, but Markstrom stood his ground denying Kassian from jamming in a loose puck in the crease twice midway through the second period.
Vancouver would then strike twice in a span of 4:17 as Pearson scored his second of the game and Eriksson would tally his first goal of the season on a backhand feed from Horvat to give Vancouver a 4-2 lead.
The Oilers have had some big third-period comebacks this season, but Vancouver made sure to quash any notion of another rally from Edmonton as Leivo would score his third goal on a wraparound just 1:21 into the third period to give the Canucks a commanding 5-2 lead.
Despite being down by three goals early in the third, the Oilers showed a flurry of desperation. However, Markstrom came up big with a pad save from point blank range off of McDavid in what was the Oilers best scoring chance of the period.