You guys, leave me alone! You're all out to eat me alive!

(this was an early job, so kind of poor)

Yankee opened up some scabs that may never heal with that link to the Hockey Prospectus article on Luongo. Which was great, by the way. It reminded me of one of the most common, and well worn, knocks against Roberto Luongo out there: He can't win the "big game". The pressure gets to him and he chokes.

So let's take a look at his results in "big games".

First of all, we're going to have to define what a "big game" is, since it's a pretty subjective measure. Currently, "big game" seems to equate to "whatever game Luongo plays poorly in", so I think we need a bit better of a definition here. I'm going to call any game in the playoffs where elimination is possible a "big game", as well as any international medal game.

We'll start with his international "big games", which would be the 1999 World Junior Final, and the 2010 Olympic Gold medal game.

1999 WJC Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (loss) 37 40 (OT) 92.5% Russia 16 18 88.8% 2010 OLY Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (win) 34 36 (OT) 94.4% Miller 36 39 92.3%

So here we have 2 gold medal games. One Luongo wins, one he loses. Both times he "outduels", so to speak, the opposing goaltender. In '99 he is awarded Best Goalie for the Tournament (that means he played pretty well, as far as I know). In 2010 Miller takes those honours while Luongo is left with the honour of being "that guy who Canada won in spite of", even though Miller let in a couple softies and Luongo bailed his team out in a couple circumstances (most noticeably the Niedermayer give away right at the circle in OT).

I consider both of these to be "strong performances".

For the playoffs, we have two games from 2007 (Dallas Game 7 and Anaheim Game 5), one game from 2009 (Chicago Game 6), two games from 2010 (Chicago Games 5 and 6), and two games from 2011 (Chicago Game 7 and Boston Game 7, although Game 5 against San Jose was probably equally a "big game").

Dallas G7 Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (win) 19 20 (OT) 94.4% Turco 28 30 93.3% Anaheim G5 Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (loss) 56 58 (OT) 96.5% Giguere 26 27 96.3% Chi 09 G6 Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (loss) 23 30 76.7% Khabibulin 33 38 86.84% Chi 10 G5 Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (win) 29 30 96.7% Niemi 20 23 86.9% Chi 10 G6 Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (loss) 30 35 85.7% Niemi 29 30 96.7% Chi 11 G7 Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (win) 31 32 (OT) 96.8% Crawford 36 38 94.7% Boston G7 Saves Total Shots SV% Luongo (loss) 17 20 85.0% Thomas 37 37 100.0%

From this, I would call the following games "strong performances": both games in 2007, Game 5 vs Chicago in 2010, Game 7 vs Chicago in 2011.

In total, that gives us 6 strong performances and 3 weak ones. I would not call this a trend of "not being able to perform in the big game". Also, if we add up all the shots and saves from these games we get an average of 91.7%. Remember this number.

Let's take a look at a couple other tables before we leave this.

First up, total regular season save percentage for goalies with more than 250 career games:

Rk Player From To Tm GP W L SA SV SV% GAA SO 1 Dominik Hasek 1991 2008 TOT 735 389 223 20220 18648 0.922 2.2 81 1 Tim Thomas 2003 2011 BOS 319 161 102 9773 9006 0.922 2.5 26 3 Roberto Luongo 2000 2011 TOT 672 308 269 20098 18476 0.919 2.53 55 4 Henrik Lundqvist 2006 2011 NYR 406 213 137 11316 10393 0.918 2.32 35 5 Niklas Backstrom 2007 2011 MIN 281 141 91 7914 7261 0.917 2.42 22 5 Tomas Vokoun 1997 2011 TOT 632 262 267 18495 16957 0.917 2.56 44 7 Ilya Bryzgalov 2002 2011 TOT 326 156 116 9350 8561 0.916 2.53 23 8 Ryan Miller 2003 2011 BUF 399 221 126 11748 10744 0.915 2.57 22 9 Martin Brodeur 1992 2011 NJD 1132 625 350 28443 25976 0.913 2.22 116 9 Cristobal Huet 2003 2010 TOT 272 129 90 7216 6591 0.913 2.46 24 9 Miikka Kiprusoff 2001 2011 TOT 529 276 177 14424 13163 0.913 2.46 40 9 Jean-Sebastien Giguere 1997 2011 TOT 525 231 195 14398 13140 0.913 2.53 34 9 Kari Lehtonen 2004 2011 TOT 285 134 111 8755 7990 0.913 2.79 17

Who is that there in third? For best career save percentage...ever, in the regular season? Looks like Luongo.



Next up, career playoff save percentage for goalies with more than 25 games:

Rk Player From To Tm GP W L SA SV SV% GAA SO 1 Tim Thomas 2008 2011 BOS 43 26 17 1393 1302 0.935 2.06 5 2 Chris Osgood 2008 2009 DET 42 29 12 1067 990 0.928 1.8 5 3 Dwayne Roloson 2006 2011 TOT 35 22 10 1159 1073 0.926 2.41 2 4 Marty Turco 2006 2008 DAL 30 14 16 876 807 0.921 2.09 4 5 Cam Ward 2006 2009 CAR 41 23 18 1160 1064 0.917 2.38 4 5 Ryan Miller 2006 2011 BUF 47 25 21 1457 1336 0.917 2.46 3 5 Roberto Luongo 2007 2011 VAN 59 32 25 1804 1654 0.917 2.5 5 5 Ilya Bryzgalov 2006 2011 TOT 27 12 13 808 741 0.917 2.55 3 9 Martin Brodeur 2006 2010 NJD 37 15 22 1105 1009 0.913 2.56 3 9 Miikka Kiprusoff 2006 2009 CGY 26 9 16 817 746 0.913 2.89 1 11 Marc-Andre Fleury 2007 2011 PIT 69 41 28 1953 1777 0.91 2.52 5

Is that Luongo showing up again near the top? Tied for 5th place? Ahead of known "playoff performers" like Brodeur, Kiprusoff and Fleury?

Remember that "big game" SV% average I told you to keep in mind? It was 91.7%. Exactly the same as his career average SV% in the playoffs.

Not exactly overwhelming proof of shitting the bed in "big games". In fact he performs, on average, the same in "big games" as any other game in the playoffs.

But hey, don't let me get in the way of the narrative.