VANCOUVER — “Hockey is fun again in Vancouver.”
Said everyone in Vancouver. Well, almost everyone. Except it was Roberto Luongo, the goaltending icon nearly a decade removed from his time with the Vancouver Canucks, who said it at the beginning of his Ring-of-Honour ceremony Thursday night.
And that is why Luongo is a man of the people and social media royalty.
He never lost touch with the pulse of the Canucks, especially their fans, and it’s that relationship as much as his 252 wins for Vancouver during a Hall-of-Fame career that led to his immortalization at Rogers Arena.
Luongo felt your pain, British Columbia. And he is enjoying your joy, but perhaps not quite as much as you did Thursday when the Canucks beat Bobby Lou’s Florida Panthers 4-0.
At the site of Luongo’s greatest triumph, where his overtime save against Joe Pavelski in the 2010 Olympic final led to Sidney Crosby’s golden goal for Team Canada, current Canuck goalie Thatcher Demko posted a 36-save shutout.
His best stops were greeted with shouts of “Louuu!”
“I mean, it’s poetic, right?” Demko told reporters. “Something was in the air, you know? Just a really cool evening. He’s such a first-class guy. I’m not super close with him, but every encounter I’ve had, he’s treated me with respect. And that’s always really cool coming from someone that you watched growing up. So just a really cool evening and obviously it was a good win, too.”
Besides the logo on his jersey, Demko has much in common with Luongo as a goalie. The Canuck is long and athletic, can extend himself, is fiercely competitive and constantly pushing himself to be ever better. Both are also smart and self-aware.
Despite growing up in San Diego, going to school in Boston and beginning his National Hockey League career the year that Luongo’s ended, Demko is keenly aware of the Canuck goalies who have gone before him and the legacy left by a string of elite puck-stoppers who have played in Vancouver.
“I’ve always been raised on having an appreciation for what came before me,” the 28-year-old said. “I mean, the steps that certain people take have led to doors opening for me and opportunity coming my way. I’ve just always had that mindset.
“(Luongo) was the best in that time period — just the way he competed and set an example for his teammates. As I come through Vancouver now in my career, just hearing the legacy that he left off the ice, (I’m) trying to follow in his footsteps. Obviously, big shoes to fill, but I’m doing the best I can.”
A snapshot for how exceptional this night was: the ceremonial pre-game faceoff, conducted by Luongo, included Demko and Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. Demko won the draw.
“I was just going with the flow,” Demko said. “Whatever they needed to make Luongo’s night work.”
“It’s pretty special,” veteran Canuck defenceman Tyler Myers said, “not only for the night Roberto had, but for Demmer to come out and play the way he did and have that performance as a goalie on Roberto Loungo Night. And it was pretty cool to be a part of it. I wasn’t able to play with Bobby Lou, but everything I’ve heard, he’s one of the best guys out there. It was awesome for us players to be a part of what went on before the game.”
“I’m so happy for you guys,” Luongo said, speaking to the fans in the pre-game ceremony. “Hockey is fun again in Vancouver. This is the way it’s supposed to be.”
“It’s the same thing for us players; we’re having a lot more fun now,” Myers smiled when reminded post-game of Luongo’s speech. “We’ve got a good thing going right now we just need to make sure we keep pushing and keep it going.”
Except for an aberration in the playoff bubble amid COVID’s arrival in 2020, it hasn’t been this way for the Canucks since a couple of years before Luongo left Vancouver, when the team was winning consecutive Presidents’ Trophies in 2011 and 2012.
Thursday’s win was the Canucks’ fourth straight, and gave them 20 wins in 30 games (20-9-1). Nineteen of those wins have been in regulation time.
After scuffling for three weeks — but still playing .500 hockey — the Canucks on this homestand beat the Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota Wild by an aggregate score of 14-4.
The last Canuck goalie to shut out the Panthers? Of course, it was Luongo, who was traded back to Florida in 2014 and since his retirement five years later has been the Panthers’ special advisor to the general manager.
Vancouver won wire-to-wire on Thursday against last season’s Stanley Cup finalists. The Canucks opened scoring on Andrei Kuzmenko’s breakaway goal at 4:03 of the first period, doubled the lead on Dakota Joshua’s hard-working rebound marker at 13:52 and were never threatened after that.
It helped significantly that the Canucks had Demko, and not Bobrovsky, in their net.
Goalie Bob made one of the most measured, accurate, unforced and unfathomable turnovers imaginable when he calmly passed the puck on to Joshua’s stick — right in front of the Florida net the Panther had vacated — for a farcical gimme that made it 3-0 for Vancouver at 10:08 of the second period. And just because, Brock Boeser scored his 22nd goal of the season during a two-man advantage at 15:41.
The Canucks start a four-game road trip with back-to-back matinee games in Minnesota and Chicago, starting Saturday. They’ll try to pack on to their outbound flight the relentless, disciplined form they uncovered the same week Luongo’s name and image were uncovered high above the ice at Rogers Arena.
“We were talking about this through that tough stretch,” Myers said. “We were on a little bit of a slide. We were still getting a few wins, but we knew we weren’t playing the game that we wanted to play. We weren’t doing the little things that gave us a lot success at the start of the season.
“We talked through it a lot, went through a lot of video, talked about it within the group and with the coaches, and we got back to a good place. But there’s always room for improvement. We want to try and keep getting better as a group, and keep looking for that top level.”
They may yet have better games this regular season. But they probably won’t have a more memorable night.
