Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - Roberto Luongo - Stud or Dud???
This wednesday, in a rematch of last year's western conference semifinal between the Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Blackhawk's was a very eventful affair which ended in a 2-1 shootout victory for the defending stanley cup champions. Although Luongo looked decent during the game, he let in 3 atrocious shootout goals that led to the loss. On the first goal, Jonathan Toews makes Luongo look foolish as he doesn't even flinch to make a save, and on the next two Sharp and Kane find holes in Luongo that don't exist in normal human anatomy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP4Tq6pLMEA
Now don't get me wrong, Luongo has proven himself in the past as a world class goaltender. Canada witnessed this as recent as the 2010 winter olympics where he took the starting position from arguably the best goaltender of all time (Martin Brodeur) and led the nation to a gold medal. Yet for the Luongo, the question in Vancouver is: What have you done for me lately? Not since his first year as a Canuck in the 2006-2007 season, in which he single-handedly led the team to the second round of the playoffs (including a 72 save performance against the Dallas stars in the first round), has he lived up to the hype surrounding him each season. So far this season Luongo has been average at best, and has yet to steal a game for Vancouver. The Canucks are an excellent team that do have the potential to win the stanley cup, but will never be able to do so with Luongo playing the way he has the past few seasons. The team has been knocked out by the Chicago Blackhawks in the playoffs the last two seasons and Luongo was outplayed by an aging Nikolai Khabibulin in one and an underexperienced Anti Niemi in the other. Vancouver will not be able to get past a team as talented as Chicago until Luongo can find his all-star form.
Also, when are the Canucks finally going to hire the legendary Kirk Mclean to teach Luongo how to finally make some breakaway saves???
Now don't get me wrong, Luongo has proven himself in the past as a world class goaltender. Canada witnessed this as recent as the 2010 winter olympics where he took the starting position from arguably the best goaltender of all time (Martin Brodeur) and led the nation to a gold medal. Yet for the Luongo, the question in Vancouver is: What have you done for me lately? Not since his first year as a Canuck in the 2006-2007 season, in which he single-handedly led the team to the second round of the playoffs (including a 72 save performance against the Dallas stars in the first round), has he lived up to the hype surrounding him each season. So far this season Luongo has been average at best, and has yet to steal a game for Vancouver. The Canucks are an excellent team that do have the potential to win the stanley cup, but will never be able to do so with Luongo playing the way he has the past few seasons. The team has been knocked out by the Chicago Blackhawks in the playoffs the last two seasons and Luongo was outplayed by an aging Nikolai Khabibulin in one and an underexperienced Anti Niemi in the other. Vancouver will not be able to get past a team as talented as Chicago until Luongo can find his all-star form.
Also, when are the Canucks finally going to hire the legendary Kirk Mclean to teach Luongo how to finally make some breakaway saves???
