VANCOUVER -- Normally, the Vancouver Canucks specialize in saying they're sorry about another Stanley Cup season gone sour. But not these Canucks. Not this year.
After yet another overtime marathon victory, another massive game in goal from Roberto Luongo, another seize-the-moment play by Trevor Linden, Western Canada's Team returned home hockey heroes in a city which has known so few. And no matter how this plays out now, they're not going to be viewed as another group of Canuckleheads. When they flew out of John Wayne Airport after winning Game 2 in double overtime, they'd rewritten True Grit yet again.
Having gone seven games with three of them in overtime including the sixth longest game in Stanley Cup playoff history, nobody was picking Vancouver to win this series before it started. "No, the monkey picked us, the TSN monkey picked us to win," said Luongo, in the best post-game quote out of their dressing room the night before in Anaheim when Jeff Cowan scored on Linden's feed from off the boards behind the net at 7:49 of the second overtime period or 110:40 of overtime for the Canucks so far in the playoffs. Once again Luongo was the head hero, stopping 43 shots to give this team with next to no offence and injured defencemen Kevin Bieksa and Sami Salo another chance to win.
When this playoff season started a Vancouver columnist compared him to Jesus Christ in a piece titled: "Our Saviour Who Art In Goal." You'd think somebody here might have suggest that to be somewhat sacrilegious but a local church put up a sign asking the question "Who has the best save percentage: Roberto Luongo or Jesus Christ?" "We knew we could get the job done.
It was our fourth overtime game of the playoffs so the guys were aware of what we needed to do to get the win," said Luongo. But as hockey heroes go, 36-year-old Linden, the face of this franchise for most of his career, has elbowed his way into a co-starring role with Luongo. He has now either scored or set up four of the game-winning goals this Stanley season.
Linden, who some suggested might be at the end of the line when all this started, said he's still appearing in a supporting role. "It all starts with the guy in net," he said. "He gives us the confidence that we have the chance to win.
He was the big star again. He planted the seed that they're beatable. We needed this for our mindset.
It puts a whole different spin on things. I just thought mentally and physically we were a lot better in Game 2." Vigneault, who kept most of his team away from the negative media vibes on game-day morning with only Luongo and four Canucks at the morning skate and no coaches in sight either, said his team had been written off.
OK. Well, er, ah, well, guilty. I thought it was over when they announced Bieksa and Salo were out before the national anthems of Game 1.
I picked Anaheim in six but was ready to book airfare home after Game 4. "There was a lot of talk that we were overmatched, that they were a much better team. It seemed like after the first game the series was already over with," said Vigneault.
"I think our guys really got fired up by everybody talking about the big, bad Ducks and no one giving us a chance." Now they're back home and you have to concede the Canucks now have a chance to make this a series. In fact, they just did.
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