Lots of perspiration and an equal helping of inspiration.

After so many moral victories in the first 49 games where the Edmonton Oilers got points for effort against stronger teams, but not nearly enough on the scoreboard, this was different.

They lost to the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in a shootout on Tuesday night, but they got terrific efforts from Taylor Hall, who scored and set up another goal by Shawn Horcoff, and dazzling netminding again from Devan Dubnyk, who made eight stops in overtime.

Dubnyk couldn't quite close the door in the shootout, though, as Cody Hodgson got the winner as the fifth shooter on the Oilers netminder. Hodgson's shot slipped between Dubnyk's pads.

Defenceman Alex Edler also scored on Dubnyk, who beat the San Jose Sharks 2-1 in a shootout Monday.

Ales Hemsky was the only Oiler to beat Roberto Luongo in the skills contest as the Canucks goalie made two dazzling stops on Jordan Eberle and Sam Gagner.

The Oilers forced the game to overtime with four minutes left when Hall redirected Corey Potter's slapper on their only power play of the game.

"Hallsy's a human scoring chance on every shift," said Ryan Whitney, who was back on the Oilers blue-line for his first game since Dec. 22 as he worked on getting his right ankle stronger, playing 18-1/2 minutes.

"When he's skating, he's so hard to control. Sometimes there's a little bit too much one-on-one, but if he learns to give it and then use his speed to get it back . and once he gets stronger and defenders can't control him .it's over," Horcoff said.

Early in the third, David Booth barely outraced Hall to a rebound in the blue paint to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead, but that was the only battle Hall lost.

Dubnyk stopped Ryan Kesler going hard to the net, but couldn't get his mitts on the loose puck after Dan Hamhuis started the mad rush up ice, getting it to Chris Higgins, over to Kesler and then Booth got his fourth point in as many games since returning from knee ligament damage.

The overtime was a wild ride. On one sequence, Dubnyk stopped both Sedins - Daniel (who got the Canucks' first goal) and Henrik - and Sami Salo.

"Yeah, it was a bit of a mad scramble there. The last one (Henrik) hit me right in the face. From there I didn't know where it was. I just laid down and everybody seemed to calm down. I figured we were OK," said Dubnyk, who made his first back-to-back starts in the last two years, making 33 stops to add to the 44 stop against the Sharks.

Hall was in the picture, too, trying to help out Dubnyk.

"Looked like you made a stop out there?" Hall was asked.

"Me? No, it was all Doobie. I thought Salo was going to hit me right in the mouth, though. That would have been great, going to the break with no teeth," said Hall, who already has 30 stitches on his forehead and a black left eye.

Dubnyk won the shootout against Sharks, but couldn't quite get it done against the Canucks as they went 10 shooters deep.

"I thought Hodgson was going glove, but he shot it off my stick," said Dubnyk.

"What can you say? Doobie must have made 77 saves the last two nights," said Whitney, who said his ankle come through the game just fine.

As did the Oilers as they headed to some time off for the all-star weekend.

"If we're going to turn this around, we certainly didn't want to go into the break with a negative feeling or a frustrated feeling," said Dubnyk.

Hall seconded that emotion.

"For us the loss to Calgary (6-2 last Saturday) was the breaking point. We didn't want to play like that anymore," said Hall.

"After the last two games, we're going into the break feeling good about ourselves," he said.

Once again, as hard as the Oilers played, they failed to win two in a row.

They haven't done that since Nov. 22 against the Predators in Nashville and Nov. 25 visiting the Minnesota Wild around U.S. Thanksgiving, but they gutted it out in a hugely entertaining game.

ON THE BENCH: The Oilers scratched Lennart Petrell and fellow Oklahoma City Barons call-up Taylor Chorney. Ben Eager (back) was also out.

jmatheson@edmontonjournal.com