East meets West in classic goalie battle

November 19, 2008   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

East meets West when King Henrik battles Roberto Luongo.

They’re Kings of their own domain. Both dominating in net for their respective clubs. Much like when Rocky took on Ivan Drago, East will meet West again when Ranger netminder Henrik Lundqvist battles Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo tonight at the Garden.

The game features two of the elite goalies in the game with Luongo’s five shutouts leading the league while King Henrik ranks first with 12 wins and tied for third with a miniscule 1.92 GAA. About the only surprise headed into the match is that Lundqvist, who led the league last year with 10 shutouts has failed to post one yet. Could it happen tonight against one of the best goaltenders who he’s had great success against outplaying him in all three career meetings back in his rookie season (2005-06) when Luongo was still a Panther?

We’ll just have to wait and see if the outcome will be similar because Luongo’s on a much better team with the Canucks (10-6-2, 22 Pts) tied for fourth in an ultra competitive West where four total points separates third place Minnesota from ninth place Nashville and Columbus.

Vancouver is eerily similar to the East-leading Rangers (14-5-2, 30 Pts) relying on the stellar play of their netminder while getting timely scoring from a balanced offense led by Daniel and Henrik Sedin. Henrik leads them with 15 points (3-12-15) while brother Daniel’s six goals are second to former Leaf Kyle Wellwood, who’s played very well thus far scoring big goals to rebound from an injury plagued 2007-08 with seven markers.

Unlike last season, the Canucks possess a more balanced attack with youngsters Ryan Kesler and Mason Raymond contributing along with the pesky Alex Burrows. Veteran pickup Pavol Demitra recently returned from injury scoring the lone goal in a 2-1 shootout loss at the Islanders Monday. He also netted three assists in a win over Toronto on Hockey Night In Canada.

Demitra is helping replace former Canuck Markus Naslund, who faces the team he rose to stardom with after coming over from the Penguins for <gulp> the immortal Alek Stojanov. Gee. I wonder who won that one.

In over 11 seasons spent in British Columbia, Naslund scored 346 goals including 30 or better six times hitting at least 40 in three straight seasons from 2000-01 through 2002-03 with his best coming in ‘02-03 when he tallied 48 goals and 56 assists for 104 points- all career highs across the board. He also went 5-9-14 in the postseason with the ‘Nucks falling to the Wild blowing a 3-1 series lead after Todd Bertuzzi opened his mouth.

The former Canuck leader dropped off following the lockout going from 32 goals and 79 points in 2005-06 to 24 and 60 in 2006-07 to 25 and 55 in his final campaign last season. His lowest output in a decade when he went 14-20-34 in his second full season with Vancouver before becoming one of the better scorers in the league during a low scoring era.

Overall with the Canucks, Naslund scored 346 goals, 390 assists totaling 736 points in 884 games. Impressive marks for the skilled Swede once tabbed by Pittsburgh in the first round 16th overall back in 1991. Just imagine if Craig Patrick had kept him playing alongside Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis, Martin Straka and Alexei Kovalev. There’s no telling what they might’ve accomplished.

Instead, he went on to stardom in Vancouver becoming one of the most respected players before being shown the door by management who blamed him for their shortcomings. Considering that his production was down, maybe it was time for a change. He pursued the Rangers once before re-upping with the Canucks. Now signed with the Broadway club for two years, eight million, Naslund is tied for second in Ranger scoring with 14 points (6-8-14). He scored his biggest goal in the final minute tying Boston last Saturday as the club rallied from two back to post a 3-2 shootout win.

After coming out of the gate slowly, Naslund’s begun to fit in on a team which doesn’t rely on one or two players to score but rather a group which has seen at least seven Rangers with 11 points or more. Interestingly enough, for a team that doesn’t score a ton (57 GF in 21 GP), they’re tied with the Blues for third best in double digit scorers with only the high flying Western attacks of the league best Sharks and defending champion Red Wings getting more contributions with as many as 10 different players scoring at least 10 or more points thus far.

Naslund’s former club has at least six of those including solid defenseman Kevin Bieksa (3-8-11), who won’t be in Vancouver’s lineup due to a left foot fracture that has him on IR. A break for the Blueshirts, who themselves won’t have one of their better scorers in Scott Gomez (3-10-13), who will remain out for a fourth consecutive game with an ankle injury.

It’s worth noting that the game doesn’t start until 7:30 with drop of the puck around 7:38 with the game which can be seen locally on MSG also being televised by TSN which helps explain the late start.

As for the history between Luongo and Lundqvist as noted above, here’s a little more on it along with some other fun facts courtesy of The NHL Today in today’s notes:

FROM THE STAT WIZARDS AT ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU
– The Canucks play the Rangers in New York tonight with a likely matchup of goaltenders Roberto Luongo and Henrik Lundqvist. Luongo ranks third among NHL goaltenders with 127 wins over the last four seasons while Lundqvist’s 116 wins tie him with Marty Turco for fourth-most in the league over that span. The top two goaltenders on the list are New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur (141 wins) and Calgary’s Miikka Kiprusoff (131).

Lundqvist and Luongo have started against each other three times, all in 2005-06, Lundqvist’s rookie season and Luongo’s last season with the Florida Panthers. Lundqvist and the Rangers won all three games: two 4-0 shutouts at Madison Square Garden and a 4-3 shootout victory in Florida.

If you want to read an interesting article before the game, be sure to check out Sam Weinman’s special feature on Ranger captain Chris Drury’s special relationship with former BU teammate Travis Roy, who was paralyzed 13 years ago during a freak accident on his first collegiate shift.

The two have remained close since the incident with Drury raising money for Roy’s cause by hosting a golf tournament continuing to contribute to the Travis Roy Foundation to this day. They still speak regularly and it’s clear how much admiration they have for each other with Drury heaping praise on how well his former teammate has handled being a quadriplegic raising money and awareness for spinal cord injuries:

“He’s an inspiration to me and a lot of people just with what he deals with on a regular basis. He’s very upbeat. He has his goals and is very independent. I can’t imagine what he goes through. I don’t think anybody could. But I don’t think he could handle it better.“

I don’t think any of us could imagine having to go through life battling as hard as Roy does day in and day out. His story is extremely courageous and uplifting.  Tonight, he’ll be speaking out at Rye High School while one of his closest buddies takes the ice able to live out a lifelong dream he once had.

When you think all is lost, just remember how fortunate we really are.

With Gomez continuing to not progress, figure the lineup to remain the same:

Naslund-Drury-Callahan

Voros-Dubinsky-Zherdev

Dawes-Korpikoski-Fritsche

Sjostrom-Betts-Orr

Redden-Girardi

Staal-Mara

Kalinin-Rozsival

It’s a light schedule with the slumping Sabres visiting the Bruins at the top of the hour which can be viewed on yahoo online if you don’t get Center Ice. The late game features the sizzling Alexander Ovechkin and the Capitals visiting the Ducks.

Ovechkin got out slowly but has been on fire lately:

– The Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin had only eight points (2 goals, 6 assists) in his first 11 games this season but he’s scored 10 points (5 goals, 5 assists) in the team’s last four games, with at least one goal and two points in each game. Ovechkin is the first Capitals player to register at least one goal and two points in each of four consecutive team games since Jaromir Jagr had two such four-game streaks in the 2001-02 season. The only player in Capitals history with a longer streak of that kind was Dennis Maruk in 1980-81 (five games).

Enjoy the night’s action.