Hey Luongo...YOU SUCK!

I wrote the following during the 2010 Olympics, questioning why the exceptionally overrated Roberto Luongo was starting ahead of Marc-Andre Fleury for Team Canada:

http://ahaberman35.livejournal.com/12346.html

In the last two seasons, Fleury has won 30 playoff games and a Stanley Cup. He’s won two game sevens, one against the best offensive player in the game and one against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

By comparison Roberto Luongo has won…ok give me a minute…I’m thinking…hmmm.

From there I went on to chronicle Luongo’s litany of big game failures. In the interest of full disclosure, Canada did go on to win the gold medal, albeit with about as little help from their goaltender as is possible in a game of that magnitude. Bobby Lu promptly blew up against the Blackhawks in the second round giving up a  21 goals in 6 games, including a stunning 19 in four losses. That would have been bad in the run and gun days of the early 1990’s, let alone now.

One year later, Luongo, the Freak Twins, and the Rest of the Western Canadian Slash and Run Pansies are at it again. Over the last 72 hours, they’ve laid the groundwork for what could be an epic post season choke. I resist the term “historic” only because we are barely one year removed from the last team to blow a 3 to 0 series lead, Claude Julien’s chronically underachieving Boston Bruins.

While the Bruins slowly and painfully disintegrated last May, the Canucks are imploding with stunning alacrity. Since Bobby Lu and the Twins eeked out a one goal win at the United Center last Sunday, they’ve been blown off the ice by a combined score of 12-2. Luongo in his inimitable fashion has gone from virtually unbeatable in the first three games to some bizarre amalgamation of Peter Skudra and Sebastian Caron. In short, he can’t stop anything.

In two games, Bobby Lu has been scalded for (I’m not making this up), 10 goals on 40 shots (a 75% save percentage) in just over 65 minutes of hockey. There simply are not sufficient words in the hockey lexicon to adequately describe this brutality. And while I freely admit that the defense in front of him has been less than stellar, the fact is that Luongo is back to yielding goals on shots I truly think Dave Filoni or Big Mike Levin would turn aside.

The irony here is that Luongo was supposed to be the missing piece in Vancouver when he was acquired. The Canucks of the late 90s and early 2000s were tremendously talented teams with one significant weakness, between the pipes. The best intentions of Markus Naslund and Todd Bertuzzi were annually foiled by the inadequacies of Dan Cloutier and Bob Essensa.

Luongo was a monumental talent who carried horrendous Florida Panther teams to respectability. He was annually amongst the league leaders in save percentage in spite of facing more shots than any other goaltender. The expectation in Vancouver was that he was another Marty Brodeur. Turns out he’s just an overhyped and overpaid version of his replacement in Florida Tomas Vokoun.

How bad having things gotten for Luongo and the Nucks? Marian Hossa scored two goals last night. Enough said.

To be fair, Luongo is hardly the only Canuck who appears to be folding under playoff pressure. For example, I can’t remember a top scorer (let alone two freaky clones of the same one) for whom the hype so far exceeds the performance as the Sedins, at least come playoff time. Oh wait; I used that exact phrase to describe Luongo in last year’s blog. So be it, I can be repetitive and still be correct.

The great Ryan Kessler continues to endure Hossa like streaks of goal scoring ineptitude in the playoffs. The Canucks defense continues to allow odd man breaks like they are playing the Gretzky Oilers in the mid 80s. Imagine what Vancouver could do if Kevin Bieksa was more focused on breaking up a 2 on 1 breaks than he was on beating up Viktor Stalberg. Dare to dream I guess.

And when the score gets ugly, the Canucks resort to their usual cheap shot, slash and run tactics. I particularly enjoyed watching Alex Edler cheap shot Troy Brower in the head and then skate behind Maxim LaPierre (another upstanding gentlemen) for protection late in the second period. Heaven forbid they throw a legal check like Brooks Orpik or face a Hawks player man to man. Keep in mind this is a Blackhawk’s team that for my money is desperately lacking in physicality and grit.

I’m always reluctant to question the heart of character of professional athletes, especially hockey players. These guys play through injuries that would keep most of us confined to our mattress for months. Still, when you combine their low brow cheap shots with their recurring history of post season collapse, I can’t help but think the Canucks are a team desperately lacking in character. Compare them to the Penguins for example who are on the verge of winning a playoff series without Crosby and Malkin. Never mind, don’t.

Ironically, Vancouver initiated its implosion right after their resident goon took out Hawks defensemen Brent Seabrook with a blatant cheap shot to the head. In any place other than the bizzarro world of Colin Campbell justice, Raffi Torres would have earned another long suspension. Instead, all is well because he tee’d up Seabrook in what is apparently called is “the hitting zone.” Never mind that he clubbed him in the head, BEFORE SEABROOK TOUCHED THE PUCK.

And we want Sidney Crosby to return to this with his post concussion status in doubt?

Anyway, that hit seemed to accomplish what otherwise seemed impossible all season. It woke up the slumbering Blackhawks. The defending champs slogged their way through a horrifically disappointing season, backed their way in to the playoffs and then dug a seemingly insurmountable 3 to 0 hole. Alas since Torres tried to decapitate Seabrook, Chicago has taken over the series. If you don’t think they are fired up, you did not see Dave Bolland smash his stick over the bench last night in a fit of rage.

For Penguin fans who don’t follow the Blackhawks, understand that Jonathan Toews could be Sidney Crosby’s twin brother. Captain Serious, as he’s referred in the windy city, shares Crosby’s ferocious competitive spirit and strong leadership qualities. Like Crosby, Toews displays maturity well beyond his years and has an innate understanding of the risks that come with mouthing off in the press.

So I will acknowledge I was a fair bit shocked by Toews’ incendiary comments after the Hawks 7-2 laugher in game four. Instead of the usual mish mosh about taking it one game at a time and respecting our opponent, the Captain let go a long, diplomatic quote, the real context of which was “the Canucks are not that good, the Hawks were just not exposing them.” He went a step further in suggesting that the media and perhaps even his teammates think the Nucks are a lot better than they really are.

Is it me or did Captain Serious call the Canucks an overrated fraud. In a nice way, politically correct way of course.

Such comments would have been stunning if they came from Brett Hull or Jeremy Roenick. To have them come from Toews, a man who measures his words like a U.S. congressmen, is shocking on a “Brett Favre texting scandal” level. Since it’s happened, Toews’ teammates like Duncan Keith, Dave Bolland, Brian Campbell and for the love of all that’s good and holy, HOSSA, have taken over the series. And Luongo has twice been yanked, once with the indignity of being taunted by Vince Vaughn.

Yes I’m jumping the gun a bit here. The Blackhawks still need two more wins to complete this combination sporting miracle and colossAL choke. The Nucks could still pull it together and salvage the series in which case this blog will appear premature and vindictive (rather than simply vindictive).

Certainly Bobby Lu tried to very hard to convince the media that “a loss is a loss regardless of the score” after Thursday night’s debacAL. That’s the same hockey media contingent that engages in an annual Canuck love fest like it’s a rite of spring, before roasting Luongo and the boys after their latest post season collapse.

Can you imagine the carnage in Vancouver if the Nucks blow this? Rest assured Alain Vigneault will be collecting Canadian unemployment. Luongo’s hockey life in Vancouver will become untenable though good luck trading a $100 Million goalie whose glove turns to stone in April. Who knows, they might even trade ONE OF the Sedins for spite.

Three days ago such a scenario seemed impossible. As of now, let’s just say that anything is possible.