He scored the winning goal and had another nine chances to score more, but Michael Grabner felt best Sunday about the goals that didn't go in while he was serving a four-minute high-sticking penalty early in the third period.

Canucks forward Michael Grabner takes a hit from Edmonton's Gilbert Brule during second period at GM Place on Sunday.

Photograph by : Andy Clark, Reuters

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The Canucks' penalty kill was superb, however, allowing just two shots which Roberto Luongo hoovered up and allowed Grabner to breathe again.

"I just tried to lift his [Lubomir Visnovsky's] stick and it him him in the face," Grabner said. "It was definitely at a bad time."

The Austrian has been playing with two other speed demons since being recalled six games ago from Manitoba, where he was banished after a bust of a preseason.

Why he feels more comfortable now, why he couldn't get unstuck and create chances during exhibition games, Grabner has no explanation. He simply shrugged his shoulders, searched for words, then shrugged his shoulders again

"I don't know, I've tried to figure it out, too," he said. "I have no clue, I don't know what's changed in the last two weeks."

His centre, Ryan Kesler, thinks he knows.

"Confidence," Kesler said. "You look at the other team, look at how Dustin Penner's playing. Confidence is a big thing in this league.

"If the coach shows faith in you, you're going to keep getting more and more confident and Michael's showing that now."

Kesler, Mason Raymond and Grabner consistently have defenders playing back on their heels, using their speed on the rush or to chip pucks in then go hard to the corners and the front of the net.

"They've been our best line the last three games," Alain Vigneault said.

On his goal, his second as an NHLer, Grabner was screening Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers when Christian Ehrhoff played a perfect slap pass, which Grabner redirected past the Edmonton goalie at 17:51 of the first period for a power-play goal.

The stats sheet shows Grabner had seven shots, but he also rifled a couple of good chances high and wide and had another chance blocked.

His speed was most apparent when he fell just short of chasing down a Raymond chip-in that went to the Oilers' goal, a puck most players wouldn't have had a chance of catching up to.

A lot of people felt Grabner didn't deserve to go as high in the draft as he did when the Canucks chose him 14th overall in 2006.

And until the past 10 days, he hadn't done anything to win converts.

Suddenly, as Vigneault said, "He's using his tools." gordshockey@hotmail.com