BY MARK SPECTOR
sportsnet.ca

EDMONTON — Stand down, Canucks Nation.

You can stop your whining now. You’ve got your two points back.

It appears that league-wide conspiracy to ensure the destruction of the Canucks has been called off. Yes Canucks fan, like everybody in the game has been telling you for the past week, what goes around comes around.

"Exactly," said Canucks winger Mikael Samuelsson. "After a whole season, it all evens up."

Actually, it took only 10 days for the worm to turn for the Canucks, who got two calls late in the game — ironically, a weak one and one very bad one — to help them to two points in Edmonton. Of course, it was two Mondays ago that the Canucks assassinated referee Stephane Auger’s character for calling two penalties on Alex Burrows in a game Nashville would win 3-2.

He must have been out to get the Canucks, they said. And on Wednesday in Edmonton, two zebras named Kyle Rehman and Eric Furlatt had it in for the Oilers, right?

This time around, however, the Canucks dressing room wasn’t so visceral.

"We were pressing. We had the best part of that (third) period," reasoned goaltender Roberto Luongo. "When you do that to a team, they tend to use their sticks a little bit more. That’s why you get the calls there."

With the Canucks trailing 2-1 (Ed note: Fixed), Andrew Cogliano was called for holding Mikael Samuelsson with 4:13 to play. Cogliano did tug at the back of Samuelsson’s jersey, so by the letter of the law, it was indeed a penalty.

But if you didn’t like the Burrows interference call late in that Nashville game, this one stacks up in identical fashion.

The Canucks scored to force overtime, and in that session Mason Raymond blew past Oilers defenceman Denis Grebeshkov on a one-on-one rush. The puck went too far however, and the scoring opportunity was lost for Raymond. So he settled for a dive.

Referee Kyle Rehman bought the call, and by now you know what the Canucks did with the power play.

"That’s not a good call," groused Edmonton head coach Pat Quinn. "There was no penalty. There is no action to warrant a call."

Asked for some further thoughts, Quinn quipped: "Where are you trying to take me? Are you trying to get into my grandkids’ inheritance?"

Even Samuelsson was ready to admit that the Canucks had caught some karma after the Nashville game. Wisely however, he said little.

As did his coach Alain Vigneault, who was just happy to see a power play unit pop all three goals in the victory.

So, after 10 days of the noisiest west wind the league has seen in years, the Canucks simply whistled their way out of Rexall Place with a 3-2 win Wednesday.

You wonder though, as that Raymond dive makes its way across the computer screens of every NHL ref, if there won’t be more karma coming the Canucks’ way.