Tonight, in what should have been a hard-fought, tight-checking, spirited hockey game, the Vancouver Canucks collapsed. Again. Averaging barely over 2.1 goals per game, Roberto Luongo has been the key to the Canucks’ limited success so far this year. However, for the third time in less than a month, they’ve been shut out, and in those games the opposition has scored a total of 16 goals! This is not the kind of goalkeeping Vancouver was expecting from Luongo.
That said, this is not a one man show. There have also been five games in the past month where the Canucks have lost in regulation by only one goal. In those games, they have a combined goal total of 9. If you can’t score more than 1.8 goals per game, it won’t matter if you have a brick wall playing goal; you’re not likely to win the majority of your hockey games.
The effort is there most nights (with the exception of the three blowout shutouts). Vancouver is outshooting the opposition almost every game (tonight vs. Edmonton the shots were 36-18 Vancouver). So was Anson Carter really that important? Does Nazzy miss Bertuzzi that much? Will Alain Vignault promote some other hot shot from the Moose to become the saviour of the season? Only time will tell… lets just hope it tells of a team with more than two goals per game…
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