page_title: Roberto Luongo
section_title: 2006–09
hierarchical_section_title: Roberto Luongo / Playing career / Vancouver Canucks (2006–2014) / 2006–09
caption_attribution_description: English: Anaheim Ducks forward Chris Kunitz at the lip of Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo's crease.
context_page_description: Roberto Luongo is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender. He played 19 seasons in the National Hockey League for the New York Islanders, Florida Panthers and the Vancouver Canucks. Luongo is a two-time NHL Second Team All-Star and a winner of the William M. Jennings Trophy for backstopping his team to the lowest goals against average in the league. He was a finalist for several awards, including the Vezina Trophy as the league's best goaltender, the Lester B. Pearson Award as the top player voted by his peers, and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player. Luongo is second all time in games played as an NHL goaltender and third all time in wins. He employed the butterfly style of goaltending.
  Born in Montreal, Quebec, Luongo is of Italian and Irish ancestry. Prior to his NHL career, he played in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for the Val-d'Or Foreurs and the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, winning back-to-back President's Cups and establishing the league's all-time play-off records in games played and wins. Following his second QMJHL season, Luongo was selected fourth overall by the Islanders in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft.
context_section_description: Prior to the start of the 2006–07 season, Panthers general manager Mike Keenan traded Luongo to the Vancouver Canucks on June 23, 2006. He was packaged with defenceman Lukáš Krajíček and a sixth round draft pick (Sergei Shirokov) in exchange for forward Todd Bertuzzi, defenceman Bryan Allen and goaltender Alex Auld. Immediately following the deal, Vancouver signed Luongo to a four-year, $27 million deal. He expressed surprise, claiming that he and the Panthers were very close to a deal the day before the trade.
  Luongo's arrival in Vancouver ended a seven-and-a-half-year period of instability for Canucks netminding, with a total of 18 goaltenders having played for the club since Kirk McLean's departure in 1998. General manager Brian Burke had coined the term "goalie graveyard" during his tenure in Vancouver to describe the club's goaltending fortunes.
  Luongo recorded a 3–1 win against the Detroit Red Wings in his Canucks debut on October 5, 2006. Later in the month, he notched his first shutout with the Canucks, stopping 32 shots in a 5–0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on October 25. On January 9, 2007, Luongo was voted in as a starting goaltender for the first time in his career for the Western Conference All-Stars. Six days after the announcement, he was hospitalized after taking a puck to the throat in practice. He spent the night in the intensive care unit for fears his windpipe would swell and become blocked. Discharged from the hospital on game day, Luongo recorded a shutout that night against the Montreal Canadiens on January 16, 2007. During the 2007 NHL All-Star Game in Dallas, Luongo was named the Skills Competition's top goaltender and helped the West to a 12–9 win over the East. Late in the season, Luongo recorded his franchise record-setting 39th win in a 2–1 overtime victory on March 9. He surpassed Kirk McLean's 38-win mark set in 1991–92. He went on to finish with a career-high 47 wins, one shy of league-leader Martin Brodeur, who broke Bernie Parent's thirty-three-year-old NHL record of wins in a season. Luongo and Brodeur are considered, however, to have been given an advantage to Parent with the inauguration of the shootout that season by the NHL, allowing more games to be decided with wins, as opposed to ties.
  In addition to his 47 wins, Luongo recorded a 2.29 GAA (which was at that time, a personal best) and a team-record .921 save percentage (surpassing Dan Cloutier's .914 save percentage in 2003–04; later broken by Cory Schneider's .929 save percentage in 2010–11). He won three team awards – the Cyclone Taylor Trophy as MVP, the Molson Cup as the player with the most three-star selections, and the Most Exciting Player Award. He led the Canucks to a Northwest Division title and what was then a franchise record of 105 points, The team was seeded third in the Western Conference. The 2007 playoffs marked Luongo's first NHL post-season appearance. Facing the Dallas Stars in the opening round, he almost set an NHL record for most saves in a playoff game in his post-season debut. He stopped 72 shots, en route to a 5–4 quadruple overtime victory, one save shy of Kelly Hrudey's 73-save mark set in 1987. Luongo went on to win his first playoff series as the Canucks eliminated the Stars in seven games. They were, however, defeated in the second round by the eventual Stanley Cup champions, the Anaheim Ducks. Luongo put forth a losing 56-save performance in the deciding fifth game against the Ducks. After the game ended in regulation at a 1–1 tie, he missed the first three minutes of the first overtime period to what was first believed to be an equipment malfunction. However, after the series ended, it was revealed that Luongo, instead, had an untimely case of diarrhea. The Canucks lost the game 2–1 in the second overtime when Luongo took his eye off the puck to look at the referee, believing a penalty should have been issued to the Ducks on a play in which Canucks forward Jannik Hansen was hit by Ducks forward Rob Niedermayer. With Luongo not paying attention, Ducks defenceman Scott Niedermayer shot the puck f
caption: Luongo with Chris Kunitz at the lip of his crease in 2006
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2009:05:14 03:01:24", "Image Artist": "Elliot Lowe", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "726", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4381", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:09:22 19:10:01", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:09:22 19:10:01", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "477741/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "300", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "450", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "321", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "492800/223", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "824000/373", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}