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Marathon win a whale of a wakeup call
Roberto Luongo's playoff debut is one to remember
Iain MacIntyre, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, April 12, 2007Good morning. After you went to bed, the Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars played 11 more scoreless overtime periods and play-by-play man John Shorthouse lost his voice and quit. Several thousand fans beat him out the door.
In related news, the National Hockey League is considering instituting 4-on-4 overtime for the playoffs.
Wednesday was the longest night -- and first morning -- in the Canucks' National Hockey League history, as Vancouver opened its Stanley Cup tournament by blowing a two-goal, third-period lead before beating the Stars 5-4 in quadruple overtime.
Canuck Henrik Sedin (centre) celebrates with his brother Daniel (right) and Taylor Pyatt after he scored in the fourth overtime period against the Stars Wednesday.
Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun
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Henrik Sedin converted a centring pass from his brother Daniel at 18:06 of the fourth overtime to end the longest game in franchise history and sixth-longest ever in the NHL.
"That's one to remember," Canuck goalie Roberto Luongo said after finishing with 72 saves, 30 of them in overtime after the playoff rookie struggled to settle his nerves in regulation time. "It's very tiring, physically and mentally. Your legs start seizing up. I did feel a little nervous because it's my first game. But I got the first one out of the way. Or first two -- I got all the experience I needed in one night."
"It's fun to be part of a game like this that ends at 12:30 at night, especially to finish it off with a win," Canuck captain Markus Naslund said after skating and hitting -- yes, hitting -- the Canucks back into it in overtime. "I'm going to bed."
The Canucks looked beaten when overtime began.
They were being outskated and outchanced, and Vancouver's energy level wasn't helped by the loss of Matt Cooke in the second period due to a groin injury and Alex Burrows in the first overtime.
Burrows was crunched face-first into the glass by Stars' defenceman Stephane Robidas. Another Canuck forward, Ryan Kesler, was playing his first game after rushing back from major hip surgery 10 weeks ago.
After taking over the game in the third period, when they outshot the Canucks 16-3 and scored twice in the last 12 minutes to force overtime, the Stars looked far fresher in the first two overtime periods, and there was a whiff on inevitability to a Dallas win.
But Luongo, who looked weak of the two of the four goals that beat him in regulation time, got sharper in the extra periods. He made excellent overtime saves on Mattias Norstrom, Stu Barnes and Antti Miettinen.
Perhaps heartened by the steadying of their goalie -- or maybe from the physical, energetic work of Jeff Cowan and Naslund -- the Canucks started skating better in the third overtime and grabbed back at least their share of the momentum.
Like Luongo, Daniel and Henrik Sedin also got stronger as the game went on and generated the winning goal after Daniel had rung a shot off the post.
"It's strange to get your legs going that late in the game," Henrik said. "Roberto was unbelievable."
Making his Stanley Cup playoff debut at age 28, Luongo fought the puck, which he struggled to catch cleanly during regulation time. But he still made a pile of saves and had his team ahead 4-2 in the third period until the Stars scored twice in the final 11 1/2 minutes.
