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Not Exactly a Prize-Fight ... |
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The battle of the two best goaltenders in the world was all the talk heading into last night’s game against the New Jersey Devils and like many Prize-Fights, the pre-game hype didn’t come to fruition.
Roberto Luongo against Martin Brodeur was billed as the best right now versus, when he finally hangs them up, probably the best ever. Goalies will always say they’re playing against the other team’s shooters not the goaltenders, but last night was a little different.
Both Brodeur and Luongo grew up in the same area of Montreal playing in the same community rinks. They have been teammates on Olympic and World Cup teams and are expected to both represent Canada once again here in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics.
Who will be #1 for the Red and White on home ice in 26 months is still up in the air, but Luongo staked an early claim on the position as the go-to guy with his 5th shutout of the season in a 5-0 win over the Devils at GM Place on Tuesday.
Coming off missing 4 games with a rib injury Luongo looked like he never missed a beat. 10 seconds into the game he made a spectacular save on Travis Zajac who had a partial breakaway after Alexander Edler couldn’t handle a Willie Mitchell pass in his skates. That was the first of 32 saves on the night and led to his 4th shutout in the last 5 games here in Vancity. The other game? He let in a Petr Sykora shot off a bouncing puck that managed to squeeze between his arm and body in the shootout loss to Crosby’s Penguins. One goal against in his last 5 home starts … not bad eh?
At the other end, the perennial #1 for Team Canada didn’t look very good. Coming in Brodeur had an outstanding 11-1-1 record and 1.68 GAA in his last 13 games, but it was only 2 minutes after Luongo set the tone against Zajac that Aaron Miller’s seeing-eye blast from the point deflected off a defender then off the post behind him. It was a deflection of course, but it happened a good 30 feet out from the net and we have all seen Brodeur make that save countless times in the past.
The rest of the first period saw very few legitimate scoring chances for either team until the final seconds when Sergei Brylin was stoned by Luongo on deflection and rebound attempts in close. 10 seconds in, and with 10 seconds to go, the workhorse Luongo had book ended the period with excellent stops and the Canucks had a 1-0 lead heading to the room.
Brodeur’s off-night continued early in the second when he failed to corral Ryan Kesler’s rebound a minute into the period. Kesler deserves a ton of credit for staying with the play as he was falling down about to crash into the end-boards and reaching back to one-hand the puck inside the post after coming in on a semi breakaway, but I’m thinking Brodeur kinda relaxed a bit assuming Kesler was long gone out of the play. Less than two minutes later Trevor Linden’s floater skipped up his arm and Brodeur was behind 3-0.
The game was New Jersey’s first in this city since 2001 (thanks Gary!) and was their first outside of the Eastern Time Zone since November 2006 (thanks again Gary!). Perhaps the 10pm body time start was a factor for Brodeur and his mates, but you know there won’t be any sympathy from anyone here in Vancouver after we just completed 8 games in 8 cities in 14 days.
The offensive output was finished off by Markus Naslund’s 2 goals after he had gone 9 without a red light to be seen. Both goals were gift wrapped for the Captain with some magical Sedin passing, as the twins were definitely the best players on the ice, generating almost half of the team’s scoring chances on the game.
After going great guns when first put together, the O-Line had managed a meager 5 points between them in the last 5 games, and was perhaps only a short time away from being broken up by coach Vigneault. Last night the trio had a 7 points combined, and you know the twins are at their best when they are making countless passes within 5 feet of each other then spinning off the cycle like they were for most of this game.
I thought the next best line on the night was the 4th one with Linden, Byron Ritchie and Mike Brown. Both Linden and Ritchie have been playing very well of late and Brown’s energy seems to be infectious. Once again he more than held his own in a fight and is making a claim for Jeff Cowan’s spot on this roster.
Linden and Ritchie were also integral parts in a perfect 6 for 6 PK effort on the night, and the team has now risen from 25th in the league to 14th at an 83% efficiency rate after killing off 25 of the last 27 trips to the box.
The Grades …
A Luongo, Henrik, Daniel
B Krajicek, Naslund, Kesler, Burrows, Linden, Ritchie, Brown
C+ Ohlund, Mitchell, Edler, Miller, Jaffray, Raymond, Cooke
C Salo, Pyatt
While the game itself didn’t live up to the hype of the massive goaltending duel, the Canucks played a very solid game in their first game back from a grueling stretch, and were very deserving of the win. The score wasn’t truly indicative of the game but we’ll take the 5 goals after only scoring 9 in the previous 5 games.
Next up is the Dallas Stars tomorrow night (PPV Telecast) followed by road games in Phoenix and Colorado on the weekend before the Christmas break.
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