Last Season's Ending Drives Luongo

Roberto Luongo doesn't bristle when he's asked about the last game of the Canucks' 2008-2009 season. He gave up seven goals in Game 6 of Vancouver's conference semifinals loss to Chicago in May. That was decidedly unlike Luongo. He knows it, everyone knows it. And he's using the worst big-game performance of his career as fuel as a new campaign gets underway.

"It's tough to figure out," Luongo told FanHouse. "Obviously, I didn't have my best game, and there were a lot of factors that came together. But I'm trying to use it as motivation for this season. I'm not happy it happened, but I learned from it."

Luongo still sounds surprised talking about that night, saying, "The thing is, I felt good, believe it or not. I stopped a breakaway by Martin Havlat, I was feeling comfortable. Then a couple of goals went in and all of a sudden it was 7-5. I've just got to grow from it."

The summer wasn't entirely stress-free, either. Luongo, a four-time All-Star and the Canucks' captain (the first goalie to be named captain in 61 years), was in negotiation for a contract extension. The deal was completed at the start of this month, and Luongo will earn a total of $64 million over 12 years. In addition, the Canucks re-signed the Sedin twins to five-year $30.5 million deals just before they were scheduled to become unrestricted free agents.

Luongo did not want the talks to continue into the season, so he was relieved to get things wrapped up.

"That was huge for me," he said. "I didn't want to face the same questions every day. I want to focus on hockey. I didn't want to have anything that was a distraction, especially in such an important year for this hockey club."

Last year Luongo thought the Canucks had the talent to win it all. He believes they have that level of ability again, and, he said, "We've added depth to our defense (with Christian Ehrhoff and Brad Lukowich), we've added Mikael Samuelsson. We had a very disappointing end to last season, but we've got a really confident group here."

Luongo has been terrific in the preseason, with a 1.45 goals against average and .942 save percentage in three games, and though he is among the top handful of goaltenders in the league, he is still trying to improve.

"Every year, I want to brush up on the basics during the preseason, make sure I'm doing things right, the things that make you successful," he said. "But I also want to implement something new every year and become more successful doing other things."

This exhibition season, he said, he's working on his post-shot response - making sure he's quicker getting into position for second shots.

"So far, so good," he said.

Luongo has something else to look forward to in the coming year, too -- he is expected to be one of Canada's top two goaltenders for the Winter Olympics, which will be held in Vancouver. He'll be one of the most visible athletes of the Games, a Canadian representing his home country in the town he plays professional hockey in.