Goaltender the Key
Terry Bell, The Province
CANADA.COM
With about six minutes left in the third period Saturday, Dan Cloutier moved quickly across his crease, stuck out his right leg and stoned Eric Boguniecki point blank with his goal pad.
Of all the good things the Canucks saw in their gutsy 2-1 win over the St. Louis Blues, that single split second might have been the most encouraging.
Yes, Mattias Ohlund was back on the defence after a 19-game absence. Sure Ed Jovanovski was dominant. And the hitting locked in like a heat-seeking missile as the Canucks regained the momentum and tied this Stanley Cup playoff Western Conference quarterfinal at 1-1.
But it was the performance of Cloutier, who made 26 saves and flirted with a shutout until Pavol Demitra beat him at 19:05 of the third period, that might have been the best bit of news.
"Absolutely, he was huge for us," said Jovanovski of Cloutier, who had given up all the goals in the
6-0 pounding the Blues put on the Canucks in Game 1 Thursday.
"He made a couple of great saves in the third period. Those are the saves you need."
Some people still have concerns about Cloutier.
The right knee is the one Cloutier injured earlier this year. He's been recovered for the past few weeks and isn't concerned about it any more, but it was still good for the Canucks and their fans to see him pass such a test Saturday night.
And it was good for them to see him sharp in the playoffs. He's been carrying that monkey around on his back since Detroit chased him from the net in their quarterfinal comeback last year. This was his first postseason win on GM Place ice.
In the third period the crowd was chanting his name.
"Well you'd rather have the cheers than the boos," said Cloutier, who, along with his teammates, got that reaction from the GM Place crowd Thursday. "It was great. It felt good."
"This [win] is a huge confidence builder for us," said Cloutier, who stoned Keith Tkachuk with eight minutes left in the game. "I wasn't sharp in the first game and I knew I had to be better for us to have a chance.
"We were terrific in our zone," continued Cloutier. "Murray Baron was great and it was good to have Mattias back. [Artem] Chubarov and Trevor [Linden] were terrific on the penalty kill."
As for Ohlund, he played 17:13 in his first work since dislocating his left knee on Feb. 27. It wasn't his usual 25 minutes but it was still a godsend.
"I felt pretty good," he said. "We played a good game and that helped. I was tired at the end but I felt OK.
"My timing was off and there were a few times where I really struggled but my partner, Brent Sopel, really made it easy for me. I relied on him to get to the puck and he did that."
Ohlund said he expects to feel a little sore today. He also said he expects to play in Game 3 Monday in St. Louis.