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Why we love to hate Luongo


Ronning4center

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Its easy to blame the goalie when we have a supposedly amazing defence and forward core infront of him.

The defence crumbled as much as Lu did in the Cup Finals, if not more. I try and see them together (defence + goaltending and forwards separate), so when we lost Hamhuis, Rome and essentially Edler to injury of course Luongo won't play as well.

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Watch game 3 & 4 against Boston or Game 7 in '09 against Chicago. Do you remember a certain slap shot he also let in from center that year when we were ahead a couple of games. As good as Lou has been; he hasn't held it together in a few moments of truth.

Here's the reality; 70 saves and 46 victories got him a $10 mill this year on his contract. 70 saves in this years SCF final & he would have been a lock for the hall of fame. Currently Canadian Tire wants him in their commercials?

Even if Lou had some composure in how he handles himself, the team would play better in front of him.

huh.gif

When he first came here, he defied expectations and carried a pretty mediocre team day in, day out. Tied the 2nd highest NHL record for wins in a single season, made 70+ saves in his 1st playoff game...he was not only forced to carry us, we expected him to.

When an injury set him back and he stopped meeting the incredibly high standard he set, he caught a lot of flak. And now that the teams good, he's seen as a scapegoat. We usually win now because the team has gotten so good. But, even when he plays out of this world, he gets no credit because the team is so good. And then when we lose, it's his fault.

He raised the bar for goaltending his first season here and hasn't really met those expectations since (until last season, but nobody really cared). In addition, he makes a ton of money. He's easy to hate.

That's how I see it, anyhow.

P.S. I don't hate Lu at all, I'm saying that's why people do.

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i like roberto and i think he is a great goaltender. he will never be a popular guy to most people because he does have a bit of a quirky pesonality, patric roy was the same. what i could not stand was the blatent caracter assasination from the media in the playoffs. the sedins and roberto were under the microscope like no other players in the playoffs. sadly this fan base is doing the same thing to our three big stars.

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There are so many people proclaiming that Luongo is the best goalie in the game today. This places Luongo on a pedestal above every other goalie out there and that is a hard claim to back up. Statistics show that he is 'one' of the top goalies out there but rarely do those same stats identify Luo as the 'very best of the best'.

I don't remember King Richard Brodeur having mental meltdowns in net during the playoffs as consistantly as Luo has. When Luongo lets in a weak goal, the floodgates seem to open and the team gets blown out of the rink by 5-0 scores.

Is Luongo mentally tough enough?

Is the cause of the blowouts after a weak goal a result of the rest of the team not being mentally tough enough to overcome adversity?

Maybe it is a combination of the two.

I agree with you that it is easier to be at ease with Schneider's personality because he is always calm and seems to quickly adjust after a bad goal. It doesn't mean that he is a better goalie, just one that seems to handle the rough going better.

Either way, we still have one of the top goaltending tandems in the league. The question is, can the coaching staff make adjustments to best utilize them in the most effective way?

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"Let me just say I know Cory Schnieder is an unproven goalie who isnt on the same level as Luongo"

They look pretty much the same statswise to me - except in salary and cap hit.

Luongo 2.11 GAA Sv % .928

Schneider 2.29 GAA Sv % .929, and Schneider wins a much higher % of his games played 72% for Schneider to 63% for Luongo.

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When he first came here, he defied expectations and carried a pretty mediocre team day in, day out. Tied the 2nd highest NHL record for wins in a single season, made 70+ saves in his 1st playoff game...he was not only forced to carry us, we expected him to.

When an injury set him back and he stopped meeting the incredibly high standard he set, he caught a lot of flak. And now that the teams good, he's seen as a scapegoat. We usually win now because the team has gotten so good. But, even when he plays out of this world, he gets no credit because the team is so good. And then when we lose, it's his fault.

He raised the bar for goaltending his first season here and hasn't really met those expectations since (until last season, but nobody really cared). In addition, he makes a ton of money. He's easy to hate.

That's how I see it, anyhow.

P.S. I don't hate Lu at all, I'm saying that's why people do.

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Just going through some old posts on Luongo and was anylizing why people seem to hate him or love him depending on how the season is going. I have a theory....

Luongo is a great goalie...I think we all agree. Though he hasnt won us a cup he's still at least in the top five goalies in the league and gives us a chance to win every night...So what is it that makes us get so upset with him? I believe its his attitude and personality. Luongo is very moody...he's up and down and its very hard for us to relate to him...I beleive it makes the average fan, who cares so much about cunucks nation, very jumpy to rely on a man they can't figure out. The fact that he plays each season away from his family who want no part of vancouver makes things worse.

Kirk Mclean is one of the most revered players in canucks history...he never won us a cup and never did we want to push him out of town. He was a great guy and great personality....you really wanted him to win for him as well as for us. The loses were loses and rarely did we blame Captain Kirk the way we get down on Lu. I know I'd feel alot better with a more stable personality between the pipes.....schneider?

I knew I was going to take a hit for that last line....Let me just say I know Cory Schnieder is an unproven goalie who isnt on the same level as Luongo..more of a post to see what everyone thought.

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The only really incredible, great regular seasons he's had while here were '07 and '11. Do you remember 2008 and 2010? He collapsed in the 2nd half of 2008 from his workload, and got injured in 2009 (but he still managed to play fairly well). And then he had a recovery season in 2010. 2007 and 2011 were his only 'incredibly high standard' seasons...2008 and 2010 faltered by that standard, and though he played fairly well in 2009 he was injured for a large part of it.

And I wouldn't say he is mediocre in the playoffs, unless you're looking at the mean average of his play (or something like that). What he

is is wildly inconsistent. In fact, most of his best hockey was in the playoffs: Games 1, 5, & 7 against Dallas, Games 2 & 5 against Anaheim in 2007. Game 2 against St. Louis in 2009. Games 1 & 6 against Los Angeles in 2010. Games 1 & 7 against Chicago, Games 1 & 6 against Nashville, Game 5 against San Jose, Games 1, 2, & 5 against Boston. The problem is...he's also played some of his worst hockey in the playoffs.

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Something is amiss.

Take the last couple playoffs for example. In the 35 games of this and last year's playoffs, he let in 17 goals over a 3 game stretch on home ice, and on two occasions he let in 12 goals in 2 games.

In the most recent playoff, how many times was he pulled? 4 or 5 times over a 25 game stretch?

This doesnt happen during the regular season (to the best of my knowledge)

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Luongo is a strong personality and strong personalities tend to be polarizing. He had gone and made this team his own, tied himself to the franchises' successes and failures, and put himself out front for the successes. Trouble is, when the team fails, he takes too much heat.

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When he first came here, he defied expectations and carried a pretty mediocre team day in, day out. Tied the 2nd highest NHL record for wins in a single season, made 70+ saves in his 1st playoff game...he was not only forced to carry us, we expected him to.

When an injury set him back and he stopped meeting the incredibly high standard he set, he caught a lot of flak. And now that the teams good, he's seen as a scapegoat. We usually win now because the team has gotten so good. But, even when he plays out of this world, he gets no credit because the team is so good. And then when we lose, it's his fault.

He raised the bar for goaltending his first season here and hasn't really met those expectations since (until last season, but nobody really cared). In addition, he makes a ton of money. He's easy to hate.

That's how I see it, anyhow.

P.S. I don't hate Lu at all, I'm saying that's why people do.

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You know, aside from that amazing playoff run, Kirk was never really much to write home about. From what I recall, people were always ragging on Kirk.

SV% .887

GAA 3.26

I don't mean any disrespect to McLean. I'm just trying to make a point in saying that your memory might not be serving you as well as you might think. McLean had as much heat on him as Luongo does now. We're a city that's always blamed the goaltender. That's just a fact.

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i think luongo has just found his major flaw and its thinking too much when the canucks were a mediocre team there was tons of shots on him so he had no time to think he just had to react and stop pucks. now that the team is much better he is left for sometimes periods at a time just sitting there wondering what he can do better which causes him to lose his rhythm and let in weak goals. you saw it in the san jose series they dominated the shots and luongo looked unbelievable. then in the boston series they got like 15 shots and scored 5 times..

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