Bret Hart once said, who are you to doubt El Dandy?

I guess it’s my turn to say, who are you to doubt the Canucks?

You’d think I’d have learned, considering the Canucks have fought back and won an incredible 9 times this season after going down. Well, tonight’s game marked effort number 10 from the ‘Cardiac Canucks’ who I think can officially be crowned the Team That Doesn’t Die. While I’m not a fan of the Canucks surrendering early goal leads (and I don’t think I ever will) I AM a huge fan of the Canucks never giving up, not looking deflated after a crap goal, not having to rely on Luongo to bail them out night after night after night.

And yeah, as I’ve said in prior post-game writeups, Luongo hasn’t been looking good. Whether it’s been surrendering goals on the first shot like he was earlier in the season or these early first period meltdowns, this NHL regular season probably isn’t up there on Luongo’s all time best.

All that being said, though, I think Canucks fans should be reminded how nice it is to have a goalie who is still capable of keeping his team in the game and capable of making a comeback like they did tonight. Luongo did let in some bad goals and put the Canucks down early, but he also made some key saves, including a wonderful pad save as well as an amazing glove save on Matt Duchene in the third period. It’s a far cry from the Dan Cloutier meltdowns of old where there was literally no chance in hell of the Canucks being able to battle back and tie the game, let alone win the game. I think I can recall ONE game where the Canucks managed to do that during the ‘Cloutier era’ and I want to say that was against Washington and Johan Hedberg was in net…but I might be mixing my Canucks history up on me.

Bottom line, Luongo hasn’t been playing his best hockey as of late, but he’s still been capable of making key saves. He can be better and it’s simply a matter of time before he turns it all around.

And man, if there were ever any doubts that Mikael Samuelsson should have been on the Swedish Olympic team and Mattias Weinhandl should’ve been left to rot on an ice floe somewhere in the Arctic, they should be all but gone after tonight’s effort. Samuelsson wound up getting a hat trick and an assist on the night in his first full game with the Sedins in ages. Although some people were upset with Burrows being taken off of the Sedins line I wasn’t too bothered by it: Trois Kronors had been ineffectual for about 10 games and AV needed to mix things up a bit. Burrows wound up with his 30th goal of the season, although the Demitra/Kesler/Burrows line wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire. I’d give them a few more games as a line before throwing in the towel or panicking over them.

The one guy I’d like to know is still alive is Mason Raymond. The only time he really stood out last night was after a pretty brutal giveaway that resulted in the fourth goal scored against the Canucks. After that, he was benched for a while before being thrown out with the likes of Ryan Johnson and Rick Rypien. Ever since that hat trick against the Flames he’s been mostly snake bitten.

Canucks play the Phoenix Coyotes tomorrow on the final game of their road trip before coming home to GM Place. Andrew Raycroft is expected to start!