Luongo Hits Milestone As Canucks Take Down Schneider And Devils 3-2 In OT
The first game in my 10 must see games of the season, it was Cory Schneider‘s return to Vancouver, the man who everyone thought would be the next goalie in Vancouver, all the Canucks had to do was find a suitable trade partner to hand off Roberto Luongo to. But, as we all know, not everything always goes as planned, and the Canucks resorted to trading Schneider on the day of the NHL draft this last summer to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for the 8th pick.
So the drama had ended in Vancouver, and Schneider is the one to take over for Martin Brodeur (whenever he decides to call it quits). Schneider and the Devils made their trip to Vancouver Tuesday night to take on the Canucks a night after they lost a three goal lead to the Edmonton Oilers. Back to backs are tough, especially when you have an aging roster like the Devils, and you have to compete with a quick and skilled team like the Canucks on the second night.
Schneider went tit for tat with Luongo in the first period, both goalies looked sharp and it looked like neither of them would budge. Almost 19minutes into the first period, Jaromir Jagr scored his second of the season, and 683rd goal of his career. Patrik Elias and Marek Zidlicky accounted for the assists on the goal to give the Devils the 1-0 advantage heading into the locker room.
A little over 7 minutes into the second period, Patrik Elias made it 2-0, by putting the puck through Luongo’s pads from the right side, just above the goal line. The puck took an awkward bounce off of the referees skate and landed in an excellent position for Elias to gain control, and he threw it at the net in hopes of some sort of miracle, and he got it. Anton Volchenkov and Jaromir Jagr were given assists on the play, and the Devils looked to have control of the game.
The Canucks came back firing away the rest of the period, and looked to have most of the momentum, carrying most of the play in the Devils end. Daniel Sedin opened the scoring for the Canucks, and the Devils found themselves in an all too familiar position.Christopher Tanev and Ryan Stanton were given assists on the scoring play.
Five minutes later, Alexander Edler put a beautiful shot past Schneider to tie the game at two a piece. Daniel Sedin grabbed his fourth assist of the season, and brother Henrik Sedin was given his sixth in only four games. The Sedins have come out at the beginning of the season and played extremely well for the Canucks, insuring they’re both going to get a nice contract from the Canucks organization at some point either this season, or next summer.
The third period was back and forth hockey, and neither team was able to break the tie. Both goalies, again, came up big on a couple occasions, neither one of them wanting to give up any ground to the other. Both had something to prove tonight, Schneider was back to the place he had called home for so many years, and the man he backed up for amount of time he spent in Vancouver was at the other end trying to prove the Canucks had made the correct decision in keeping him over the summer.
Both teams killed all penalties they were given. The Canucks were 0 for 2 on the powerplay, and the Devils were 0 for 1. Neither team had many opportunities with the man advantage. And on to overtime we went, where four on four hockey opens the ice and makes everything that much more exciting.
David Booth was able to get the puck back out to the point where Jason Garrison made no mistake of firing the puck on net. Schneider never saw the puck coming through the traffic in front, and the Canucks won the game 2 minutes and 18 seconds into overtime.
Schneider who may have very well outplayed Luongo during the initial 60 minutes of the contest, stopped 29 of 32 Vancouver shots, but in the end Luongo ended up with the victory. Luongo recorded his 350th career win in his 750th NHL game. Luongo stopped 21 of 23 shots as the Canucks won their third straight game under new head coach John Tortorella. The Devils got themselves a point, which makes that three straight games with a point, but still find themselves winless in the new NHL season.