Had he not grabbed the puck before it crossed the goal line, reporters who surrounded Vancouver Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo yesterday might have been asking some different questions.
Instead, all they wanted to know is where the save ranked in his personal pantheon of great on-ice robberies. For those who care, he put it second, behind one he made on his teammate, Pavol Demitra, in the final seconds of the semi-final game against Slovakia in the recent Winter Olympics.
That save in the final seconds of the game helped Canada preserve a 3-2 win, clearing the way for its gold-medal victory. His one Thursday night in overtime against the Los Angeles Kings in their Stanley Cup first-round opener helped keep his team alive long enough for forward Mikael Samuelsson to win the game for Vancouver 3-2 minutes later.
Luongo said that since the game, he'd seen replays of his heroic bit of thievery probably 20 times. He now has seared into his mind the image of a rebound shot by L.A. defenceman Jack Johnson trickling toward the goal line. In a spontaneous act of desperation, Luongo spun around, getting to the puck with his glove mere millimetres before it became a game-winning goal for the visitors.
That Luongo emerged from the game being treated as a star seemed incongruous. He certainly wasn't the best goalie in the opener. That was L.A.'s netminder Jonathan Quick, whose 41-save performance helped keep his team in the game.
But it isn't just Quick's dominating performance in Game 1 that makes Luongo being cast as a goaltending hero of any sort seem misplaced. The fact is, other than The Save, Luongo often looked shaky. This continues a disturbing pattern that has been repeated game after game for a couple of months now.
Against L.A., Luongo failed to control rebounds that once upon a time he easily corralled. The Kings' second goal, by Fredrik Modin, is one he should have had. But the strangest moment of the evening occurred when Anze Kopitar broke in on Luongo with Canucks defenceman Alex Edler hot on his tail. Kopitar tried several times to get a shot away but was thwarted by the trailing defenceman. At the end of the play, Luongo was 18 feet out of his net, on his knees, completely vulnerable.
It was the kind of erratic, undisciplined bit of goaltending you never saw from Luongo when he was at the top of his game. So how on earth did he end up in that position?
"He [Kopitar]kept moving and he made a deke and then another and then another and by the end I was where I was," Luongo explained. "Luckily Alex prevented him from getting a shot away."
Otherwise, Kopitar would have had a wide open net to shoot into.
I realize it may seem harsh to be dissecting Luongo's game given that the Canucks won and that he played a pivotal, if split-second, role in allowing that to happen. But Luongo isn't just any player on the ice. He is supposed to be a franchise player, the player who will need to be stellar if there is any hope of the Canucks going far in these playoffs. But he hasn't been that for a while now and he certainly wasn't that in the opener and, well, I guess we'll see what happens from here on in.
As long as the Canucks continue to restrict L.A.'s chances the way they did on Thursday night, it won't matter if Luongo isn't great. He will only have to be good. It looks as if Jonathan Quick, on the other hand, is going to have to be brilliant if the Kings intend on pulling off the upset.
Listening to the Canucks players talk about him yesterday, they all seem to think he's good enough to steal games.
"He's just so fast post to post," Vancouver winger Alex Burrows said. "And he covers the bottom of the net really well, which forces you to go upstairs."
And when you go upstairs?
"He's got a quick glove hand," Daniel Sedin said. "Really quick. So the best plan is to get a lot of pucks on him and get some traffic in front of him so he can't see the puck as well."
Yes, blind him. That would seem to be a good strategy.
As for Luongo, the search for his A-game continues.
Reporters asked him yesterday whether he thought his game-saving grab might be the kind of save that spurred him on to postseason greatness, that helped remind him of the goaltender he can be.
The questions seemed to be more hopeful than anything.