Ditch Roberto Luongo as Canucks captain and rebuild him a defence
A friend called Wednesday morning to talk about the Vancouver Canucks, who will keep our calendars uncluttered in June for the 16th straight spring.
I noted failed to outplay rookie Chicago Blackhawk goalie . My friend countered that the guy needed to outplay was Blackhawk scoring star Jonathan Toews because for the Canucks to win, their goalie had to be the best player.
Luongo wasn’t, of course.
Then we started listing Canucks who had a better playoff than . and , and up front, , , and maybe Shane O’Brien on defence. Probably Ryan Kesler, despite fading badly with an injured shoulder.
Luongo barely made the top-10 on his own team. His goals-against average (3.22) and save percentage (.895) rank 13th among 15 goalies who have played at least five games in the National Hockey League playoffs.
Let’s be clear: unlike Vancouver’s elimination game a year ago, this playoff failure can’t be blamed neatly on The Canucks’ problems against the Blackhawks went far beyond the goal crease, and no one should comfort himself with a simplistic lone-gunman theory to rationalize the team’s most discouraging playoff performance since the second-round collapse against the Minnesota Wild in 2003.
Still, is a conundrum, no?
He is about to begin a 12-year contract extension that will pay him $10 million US next season. cap hit is a more manageable $5.33 million, but his 2010-11 salary will tie him with Vincent Lecavalier for the highest on the planet by a hockey player.