Prior to this NHL season, Roberto Luongo had to carry not just one, but two big responsibilities for the last two seasons. The first one was obvious--being the starting goaltender for the Vancouver Canucks. But the second one might have been one of the sticking points as to why the team couldn't solve the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup playoffs the last two seasons (the second of which paved the way for the Blackhawks' to win their first Stanley Cup since JFK was in the White House), and that was the designation as the team's captain.
Fast-forward to the 2010-11 NHL season. The Canucks are easily the best team in the Western Conference right now and are considered heavy favorites to raise the Stanley Cup at season's end. The thing that's helped their cause the most is Luongo is no longer the team's captain, as he handed the position down to Henrik Sedin, last year's league MVP. And it's also allowed Luongo to focus on the most important job in his repitore, and that's patrol the crease for the Canucks.
Before Luongo came to the Canucks, he had a brief yet rough stint with the New York Islanders, a team that's mostly been short on success since the early 1990s (he was drafted by the Islanders in the first round of the 1997 NHL Entry Draft). After the 1999-2000 season he was traded to the Florida Panthers, where he received a Vezina Trophy nomination (for league's best goaltender) during the 2003-04 season. But still, success for the Panthers was hard to come by and after the 2005-06 season concluded, Luongo was on the move again. He was traded to the Canucks (along with defenseman Lukas Krajicek and a sixth-round draft pick) in exchange for defenseman Bryan Allen, goaltender Alex Auld (who started much of the Canucks' games in 2005-06 after starter Dan Cloutier was injured early in the season), and forward Todd Bertuzzi (who was still under a dark cloud stemming from his infamous attack on Colorado's Steve Moore during the 2003-04 season).
With Luongo in the fold in Vancouver, it solved years of instability at the goaltender position which began when fan-favorite Kirk McLean left Vancouver after the 1997-98 season. That said instability led to former general manager Brian Burke (1998-2004) dubbing Vancouver as "the goalie graveyard," but that title is now no more since the Canucks' acquisition of Luongo. Since his arrival, he's set records for wins in a season, save percentage in a season, and is the franchise's all-time leader in shutouts. With the strong possibility of the Canucks finally winning their first Stanley Cup in 2011, it would make Luongo's resume complete, which also includes a QMJHL championship with the Val-d'Or Foreurs in 1998 and an Olympic gold medal from the 2010 Olympics--won on Canadian soil in Vancouver.
Photo Credit: AP
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