Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Tortorella calls on Luongo to step up during breakdowns

Corey Crawford, Daniel Sedin

Chicago Blackhawks’ Marcus Kruger, right, of Sweden, scores a goal against Vancouver Canucks’ goalie Roberto Luongo during third period NHL hockey action in Vancouver, British Columbia Saturday Nov. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck)

AP

The Vancouver Canucks have earned just a single victory in their last eight games and that’s caused them to fall five points shy of a playoff spot.

If you had to point to one general thing that’s gone wrong with them lately, it would be their anemic offense as they’ve been held to only one goal on five separate occasions during their recent slump. Still, Canucks coach John Tortorella thinks that goaltender Roberto Luongo isn’t blameless in all of this.

“I’m not letting Lui off the hook, he needs to help us,” Tortorella told the Vancouver Province. “I love our goalie. I love our goalies. I think they’ve played really well.

“We also need a save when there is a breakdown. You look at (Los Angeles Kings goaltender Ben) Scrivens (Monday). We had a chance to go up 3-1. We had four glorious scoring chances, he makes four saves.

“We need something like that to happen for us. I’m not putting all the onus on Lui, but he’s part of the problem here as far as closing out games. It goes right through our team and it goes to the coaching staff, too.”

Luongo has had rough starts to be sure, but he’s been far from bad lately. He’s enjoyed a 2.17 GAA and .916 save percentage this month, but it’s only led to a 3-3-4 record.

He feels he’s been playing well too, although he certainly agrees with Tortorella that there’s room for improvement.

The Canucks will play against Ottawa tonight. If Luongo gets the nod, maybe he’ll be able to find another level and carry the Canucks. Of course, it certainly would help matters if Vancouver’s forwards showed signs of thawing out.

Follow @RyanDadoun