inGoal in Vancouver: Who plays Tuesday? Breaking down Brodeur and Canada-USA showdown

Kevin Woodley is a rec-league target and former contributing editor of the Goalie News. He has written about the Vancouver Canucks and NHL for The Associated Press, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and The Hockey News for the last decade, and is currently at the Olympics for AP.

Canadian coach Mike Babcock was planning to take Sunday evening to figure out his goaltending.

“What I’ll do is put out the emotion, I’ll watch the game (on video) and then I’ll make my decision from there. Obviously this was a night we’d like to have been better in that area. We’ll look at that.”

If it’s based solely on Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the United States, it’s hard to imagine Babcock will come to any other conclusion than to replace a totally ineffective Martin Brodeur with Roberto Luongo in time for Tuesday’s qualification game. Then again, Babcock can’t just look at the past. He must also look to the future and a showdown with Russian Wednesday that many thought would be for a gold medal.

Will Roberto Luongo get the call on Tuesday?

As easy as it would be to argue that showdown wouldn’t be necessary had Luongo played against the Americans on Sunday – freezing pucks instead of playing them into danger, with at least three of the goals hitting the pads of pretty much every butterfly goaltender in the NHL instead of finding holes in Brodeur’s outdated sprawling – the reality is Brodeur may yet represent the best chance to beat an incredibly quick, skilled Russian team that attacks relentlessly off the rush. That kind of attack may be better suited to Brodeur, who is more of a retreating, outside-in goaltender and did make a couple of great breakaway saves against the U.S., than Luongo, who sometimes struggles on rush chances.

“I made some key saves I thought in the game to turn it around and we just didn’t take advantage of it,” said Brodeur. “After the two breakaway saves I made in the second I thought maybe something was going to happen and we went on to take three penalties in a row and they score that fourth goal.”

That goal was again along the ice, between Brodeur’s legs after his stick got caught awkwardly in his pads. It seemed to fit with the American’s scouting report on Brodeur, as outlined here at inGoal on Sunday. So too did the struggles of Canada’s defensemen to adjust to Brodeur’s puckhandling, which went quickly from an asset to a liability against the U.S. on Sunday. If they can figure that out before playing Russia – yes we’re making the safe assumption Canada gets past Germany Tuesday with either guy in goal – Brodeur’s ability to move the puck could remedy the Russians. If they can’t, it just keeps alive scrambles in the Canadian end, which led to the first two goals on Sunday against the US.

“I hate to say it but right now that’s what we need, to play more games,” Brodeur, who finished with 18 saves, said of failing to secure a bye to the quarterfinals with a win over the U.S. “There are things we’ve got to work on and hopefully the extra game will give us that opportunity.”

Unlike the U.S. team, which admittedly scouted Brodeur thoroughly and were led with three goals by former and current long-time New Jersey teammates like Brian Rafalski and Jamie Langenbrunner, it’s unlikely the Russians will have as good a handle on how to beat him. This is after all a team that left Pavel Datsyuk on the bench after one shootout attempt in their opening loss to the Slovaks, while sending Alex Ovechkin out three times. Ask any NHL goalie who the last guy they’d want to face in a shootout is, and most answer Datsyuk – some have even placed him first, second, and third – while Ovechkin has always struggled in the one on one. For now, though the more important question is which Canadian goaltender might get the unenviable task of facing both in a win-or-go-home game on Wednesday

For his part, Roberto Luongo wasn’t touching the potential of a goaltending controversy with a diving pokecheck, though Brodeur’s ill-timed face-first reach on the third goal may play a role in it.

“That’s not my call,” he said. “I’m here for Team Canada. I’m not here for Roberto Luongo.”