When the Vancouver Canucks acquired respected Montreal-born goaltender Roberto Luongo from the Florida Panthers for Todd Bertuzzi in the offseason, they hoped they were not only getting rid of some bad karma, but also getting a long-term solution in the net.
Against Colorado and everyone else.
Yet after the Avalanche got two goals from Andrew Brunette and one from Paul Stastny, plus 36 saves from Jose Theodore in a 3-2 victory over the Canucks on Saturday night in the Pepsi Center, Luongo had lost all six of his starts against Colorado in his seven-season NHL career.
For the second time this season, Theodore outdueled his fellow Montreal-born goalie and longtime Eastern Conference rival, since Colorado also won by the same score Oct. 8, also at the Pepsi Center. And Colorado took this one, despite being outshot 38-20.
Theodore’s work was especially crucial in the first period. Though Colorado came out of it trailing only 1-0, Theodore made 15 saves as the Canucks – especially the Sedin brothers, Henrik and Daniel – controlled the puck and the play.
“I just felt I did my job,” Theodore said. “As a goalie, you just want to make every save. That’s what I tried to do for 60 minutes, and the guys took care of the rest, scoring the big goals when it was time.”
Theodore downplayed any notion of a personal rivalry with Luongo.
“The only thing I think, every time you play one of the good goalies, you know you’re going to have to bring your game up a level,” he said. “He’s approaching it the same way. We both want to win, and we both take a lot of pride in trying to be the best out there.”
It wasn’t that Luongo was awful, either, especially because he was hung out to dry on the Avalanche’s game-winning goal, which came when Colorado’s two former Atlanta Thrashers teammates – defenseman Brett Clark and Brunette – sensed what was coming. Clark kept the puck in and got it to Brunette, who was alone down low, and Brunette went to the backhand and slid the puck past a committed and prone Luongo to make it 3-2 at 3:22 of the third period.
“We played with each other before, and he kind of knows where I am,” Brunette said of Clark. “He just threw it in the vicinity of where I usually am. Luckily, I had some time there.”
The former Thrashers also worked together on Colorado’s first goal, when Brunette tipped a Clark shot past Luongo to tie the game at 1-1 at 1:32 of the second period.
Before Brunette’s tie-breaking goal, Colorado didn’t take advantage of an opportunity to go back in front later in the second period.
The Avs had a 5-on-3 power play for the full two minutes after the Canucks’ Rory Fitzpatrick (slashing) and Lukas Krajicek (hooking) both went off at 16:17. But the Avalanche could get only three shots during the two-man advantage, and the third was a relatively harmless drive from Clark as the penalties wound down.
After consecutive non-capacity crowds in the past three home games – albeit with announced attendance still more than 17,000 in all three – the Avalanche was back in the sellout mode Saturday night. The crowd of 18,007 was Colorado’s fourth sellout of the season and came nearly three weeks after the franchise’s sellout streak ended at 487 games.
