Torres, Oilers beat Blue Jackets 5-2

The rested Edmonton Oilers took advantage of a Columbus Blue Jackets team playing for the second straight night. Raffi Torres scored twice and Fernando Pisani had a goal and two assists to lead the Oilers to a 5-2 win over the Blue Jackets on Wednesday night.

Edmonton was playing for the first time since beating Los Angeles 4-3 on Saturday night, and Columbus was coming off a 3-2 shootout win at Vancouver on Tuesday night.

"It was a big advantage sitting here for three days when you are getting a team that is coming off a back to back," Oilers coach Craig McTavish said. "We've had it go the other way too.

"We had to take advantage of it. For the most part we did and I'm pretty happy with the way that we played."

The Oilers' second line of Pisani, Torres and Jarret Stoll had a good showing against Columbus, with Stoll addind two assists.

"Sometimes you don't get rewarded even if you are working hard," Pisani said. "It was good to see us get some secondary scoring tonight.

"It wasn't just the top line getting it done. It was nice to see. Hopefully we can build off this."

Ryan Smyth and Petr Sykora also scored for the Oilers, who finished a five-game homestand 3-2 and moved within four points of eighth-place Minnesota in the Western Conference.

David Vyborny and Fredrik Modin had the goals for Columbus, which snapped a four-game winning streak.

"We came out flat but that's no excuse," Blue Jackets forward Rick Nash said. "They were clearly the better team tonight.

"They outshot us and out-chanced us. We need to be better."

Smyth opened the scoring with a power-play goal at 3:31 of the first period. Columbus goalie Ty Conklin, a former Oiler, stopped Marc-Andre Bergeron's shot from the point but Smyth batted the rebound out of mid-air and into the net.

"We knew they played (Tuesday) so we wanted to jump all over them," Torres said. "That start just seemed to carry through for the whole game."

Torres put Edmonton ahead 2-0 just 22 seconds into the second. Pisani feathered a nice pass through the legs of a Columbus defenseman to Torres, who earned his 100th point with the Oilers.

Columbus pulled to 2-1 at 6:03 on the power play, deflecting a shot by former Oiler Anson Carter shot from the point past Edmonton starter Jussi Markkanen.

However, Sykora got a power-play goal at 11:57 to restore the two-goal lead. Smyth took a pass in the crease and chipped it to Sykora, who scored just his third goal in 17 games.

Markkanen made a huge stick save on Modin with just over a minute left to keep the score 3-1 heading into the third.

Columbus pulled to 3-2 with Modin's power-play goal 46 seconds into the third.

Torres got his second goal of the game, at 5:41, converting a centering pass from Jarret Stoll from behind the net. Marty Reasoner set up Pisani for the final margin at 7:06.

The Oilers begin a two-game road trip in Vancouver on Thursday night while the Blue Jackets visit Calgary on Friday night.

Notes:@ Markkanen was appearing in back-to-back games for the first time since the sixth and seventh games of the Stanley Cup finals last June. ... Conklin faced his former teammates for the first time. ... Columbus D Bryan Berard played his first game of the season Wednesday, returning from a lower back injury that had seen him sidelined for the first 51 games. ... Wednesday's game was the 60th consecutive regular-season sellout of 16,839 at Rexall Place, a streak dating back to November 2005.