Round II: Playoff Summary: May 3, 2007

Anaheim 2, Vancouver 1, 2OT

In the age of castles and kingdoms, catapults and knights, one way to overrun a castle was to put it under siege, and bombard it with a continuous barrage of volleys until a wall collapsed. One of hockey’s best netminders must have felt like a stone castle last night. The Vancouver Canucks faced 63 shots, and Roberto Luongo carried his team to the second overtime against the Anaheim Ducks. Tied at one, Scott Niedermayer threw a 60-foot hope shot into the Vancouver net at 4:30 of the second overtime because Luongo was minding the referee instead of his goal. Rob Niedermayer had clobbered Canuck Jannik Hansen with what appeared to be a clean hit, and Luongo looked briefly to the referee and raised his arm to signal he thought there should be a penalty. In that shortest of moments, the puck slid past him and before he could fully react, the Canucks’ season had come to an end..

“I made a mistake and it cost us the game,” Luongo said quietly, his eyes red. “I took my eye off the puck for a second and Scott Niedermayer is a smart player. He probably saw that and just fired it right away.” General manager Dave Nonis said, “I’m proud of these players. We’ve worked tremendously hard to get the respect back for our team.” On Luongo, Nonis said simply: “He can not play better than he did. Without him, we don’t get to overtime; we don’t get anywhere near overtime.”
Niedermayer’s first goal of the postseason came on the team’s 63rd shot, a franchise record for a postseason game. Luongo, who sat out part of the first overtime because of an equipment problem, had stopped 56 of them in a show-stopping performanceBy contrast, Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere faced just 27 shots. Samuel Pahlsson gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead 14 seconds into the second period and the goal seemed to be enough to stand up over the course of a game the Ducks thoroughly dominated for long stretches, if not entire periods.
But Alex Burrows tied it midway through the third.
Luongo was seemingly under constant siege. Twenty-two shots came his way in the second period. Not one found the net thanks to his glorious play. “There wouldn’t have been a hockey game tonight if it weren’t for Roberto,” Vancouver Coach Alain Vigneault said. “He’s the reason we went into double overtime.”
A futile 37-year chase for the Stanley Cup has left Canuck fans so desperate, that this team that went farther this season than anyone expected, will still be a disappointment. Ironically, this loss came in the Magic Kingdom, but if not for Roberto Luongo, the stone castle of goaltenders, they would not have been here at all.