I'm not sure I buy any argument that rests on what sort of games a goalie allows his goals in. That seems like a fairly random distribution of luck to me. Short of maybe extreme blowouts, I don't think a goaltender plays altogether differently in a 2-1 game than a 4-2 game. The fact that the Canucks haven't managed to get many points in 0 or 1 goal game scenarios speaks to that bad luck. The goaltending would have to be worse than last season by a huge magnitude to go from generating 25% of points in low scoring games to generating 4% of points in them.
I definitely think Luongo needs to be better, but a 914 5v5 SV% 15 starts into a season isn't awful by any measure. It's not good enough, but on a team that's dominating possession like the Canucks, it's good enough for better results than the Canucks have had. If he was at his career elite level, we're talking about 15 less goals in every 1000 shots at 5v5 (one in every 66.6 shots). If the team gives up 20-22 5v5 shots a game, that's about one goal every three games.
I see a lot of players fumbling passes and taking too long to get shots off. It looks like a team that's struggling to score and thinking about it too much. If they keep playing this way, they'll get the results. I think they'd get better results with another Top 6 forward though...
Heck, if Luongo stayed at this level all year, I'd be concerned. But when you look at how volatile save percentages are over small samples, it's not something worth getting worked up about. I think he's actually looked better positionally the last 15 games than he did the first 10. The D needs to learn to play 2 on 1s though.
Edit: a power play operating at 20% efficiency instead of 10% with four power play opportunities a game would generate roughly the same re-distribution in goals that Luongo returning to elite form at 5v5 would. It would actually generate a bit more, but I'd allow for a bit of a backslide from the 4v5 unit.
I don't really see a specific issue with this team right now, outside of a potential skillset imbalance. Too many similar players for my tastes. As I said, similar to the 2012 Kings team.
Too many people believing conspiracies and bribery relating to the officials. It had been doing my head in for a while anyway. For the most part this place has always seemed to be slightly more sensible.
), and yet every time there's a 2 on 1, the D is selling out to block the pass in a way that gives up the middle of the ice. The D need to keep their lane in the middle of the ice and just let Luongo take the shooter. This is hockey 101.
