Not certain how he does it, but Roberto Luongo made 33 saves Tuesday night in a 5-0 shutout of the Boston Bruins in Sunrise.
It was Luongo’s return to the Panthers’ net after an injury kept him sidelined for five games.
“It was great for [Luongo] to be back in there,” Florida coach Bob Boughner said. “His rebound control was amazing. There was a lot of second and third rebounding; he didn’t leave a lot laying around in the crease. I’m happy for [Luongo]; he moved into ninth all time and he did it in nice fashion.”
Roberto Luongo made 33 saves in shutout win over Boston – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
Mike Hoffman had two strikes for the Panthers who improved to 11-10-5.
“I thought we had a great first period and we just wanted to keep building off of that and keep pushing,” Luongo said. “Once we got that first one on a bit of a lucky break, the boys started to feel more comfortable and got a couple more.
“The boys did a great job. There weren’t a lot of breakdowns, a lot of odd-man rushes, breakaways, stuff like that. It really helps my game when we play like that defensively, and it also translates in offense for our club. Take more of those hopefully.”
Jonathan Huberdeau, Evgenii Dadonov and Mike Matheson scored single markers for Florida.
“Everything is working right now,” Huberdeau said. “It’s unbelievable. I want to try to keep it simple out there, and it’s been working. I just want to keep doing that game after game.”
Boston dropped to 14-9-4.
“I didn’t like the first at all, to be honest with you,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Our goaltender kept us in. Our goaltending has been very good all year, so we’ve been able to bounce back from it, but tonight it was man against boys at times, it looked like. Some of our younger players had their hands full.”
[WATCH: All Bruins vs. Panthers highlights]
Jaroslav Halak made 39 saves in the loss.
“I guess I need to be better, especially in the second period,” Halak said. “Tonight, we just didn’t execute in the second period, and that cost us the game. And we just have to regroup. That’s the bottom line. We need to find a way to win.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.