One is the Loneliest Number

Being an NHL goalie has got to be one of the loneliest positions to play. When the team wins a game, they win because someone scored the winning goal and became the games hero. When the team loses, it's because the goalie didn't make that key save to keep the team in the game.
As many of you know and for those new to 'me', I am a huge ( HUGE ) Luongo fan and I tend to pay slightly more attention to this type of stuff.   I can get quite passionate when discussing the goalie position .. and if I'm being really honest, anything to do with Luo. :)

Luoooooo

There are 6 players on the ice for the Canucks ( unless of course we are on the PK ), which means for the puck to get to Luo, it must go through 5 guys. So if the puck gets past the 3 forwards and the 2 defencemen and then Luo, why is it all Luo's fault ? Common sense says it's because he is the goalie and his job on the ice is to stop the puck, but hey, there are 2 Dmen who have a job out there as well, and we often see forwards blocking shots.. just ask Higgs(Chris Higgins) and his foot about that ... so yes, while it is the goalies job, he shares that job with 5 other guys.
Goalies can't be the hero and score goals. They cant take the puck down ice and take a shot on net. They can't score the overtime goal. So when the team is not scoring , all a goalie can do is sit , all by himself, at the other end of the ice, and have faith that his teammates will put the puck into the opposing net . Yet even when the Canucks lose with zero goals scored by them, Luo gets the blame.  I think that comes with the thought that if Luo plays amazing and stops everything thrown at him ( even breakaways & 5 on 3s) then the guys will feed off it and start to score goals. I see it from the other perspective though.  If the team scores a goal and is playing well in front of Luo, he will feed off that and make amazing stops, like we have see him do , many times.

Quite often we have seen Robbie Luo kill off early penalties and early 5 on 3s, sometimes consecutive, to keep the Canucks in the game... and the boys up front miss open nets , fan on passes and don't pull through with a goal to help Luo out.. then Luo let's a goal in and BAM! it's all his fault.
                       
A goalie spends much of the game in one end by himself , and unless he is a great puck handler who comes out of his net a lot, he can go many minutes without even touching the puck. When his team scores a goal, he doesn't get to celebrate with the others.  Even the guys sitting on the bench get to be involved with high fives & fist punches, but not the goalie. The only time he gets to celebrate with the team is when his team wins.  That's got to suck sometimes. ( I wonder if I'm the only person who notices things like this ? haha )

Nice Save.. Great Memory

And last but not least .. Luongo was part of a team that won an Olympic gold medal overtime game , he had an amazing regular season which resulted in the co-winning of a nice piece of hardware and he made a beautiful save in overtime game 7 vs the Hawks. Those were some pretty big wins he took part in, so the whole ' Luo chokes in big games' thing is getting old ;)
Roberto Luongo does not win or lose games.. the Canucks win or lose games and like him or not, he is a Canuck, he is our goalie, he is part of the team and he is damn good ! :P



With me as a fan, One isn't the loneliest number ;)