NHL Playoffs 2012: Was Roberto Luongo or Tim Thomas More Disappointing?

A year after they presented one of the starkest contrasts in big-game performance in the Stanley Cup Final, there was not a whole lot of tire-pumping to be earned by either Tim Thomas or Roberto Luongo in the 2012 NHL playoffs.

Thomas’ defense of his Conn Smythe Trophy and the Boston Bruins’ championship ended in seven games. Luongo’s endeavor to redress his reputation lasted a mere two outings, while his team’s quest for the elusive 16 wins was cut off after five postseason tilts.

But at least Thomas pushed his arm-wrestling bout with Washington Capitals’ rookie Braden Holtby to overtime in Game 7, with each individual match being decided by a single goal and four in a bonus period. He allowed his share of softies, but kept Boston in each game when he really shouldn’t have been asked to do so.

The Bruins’ shortcoming was largely, if not exclusively, due to the ill-timed hibernation of their most leaned-on scorers. Vancouver’s five-game, first-round falter at the hands of the Los Angeles Kings literally started from the goal out.

Luongo, who unlike Thomas had no title to defend and so much still to prove this year, practically Xeroxed the more pitiful pages from his June 2011 diary in the Canucks’ confrontation with the Kings. Upon allowing seven goals on 64 shots faced in back-to-back home losses, he gave way to Cory Schneider for the balance of the series.

Ultimately playing one more game and 66 more minutes, while facing 37 more shots, Schneider allowed three fewer playoff goals than Luongo. Although, not unlike Thomas, the Vancouver backup would be burned by a lack of offensive support.

After Thomas shut out Luongo’s skating mates, 4-0, on June 15 of last year, both of the 2011 Finals goalies had the same amount of rest in the offseason, namely less than anyone else in the league’s goaltending fraternity.

In the 2011-12 regular season, they were each among the 22 goaltenders who accumulated at least 50 starts and 3,000 minutes in the crease.

Between October of 2010 and the first week of April 2012, the now 33-year-old Luongo logged 140 games in the regular season or postseason. In the same span, the 38-year-old Thomas accumulated 141 meaningful appearances.

All things considered, not too much should have been expected of either stopper. But Thomas had already flaunted the otherworldly willpower to charge up a solid first half to this season, even after the short, celebratory summer. He also rebounded from a 10-week lull post-New Year’s for a timely, promising homestretch.

On the other side of the continent, Luongo and his team garnered its second straight President’s Trophy, but still lacked complete fulfillment in the second season. If either of the reigning Stanley Cup Final starters was to have an intangible driving force en route to another deep run, it was Luongo.

And yet, there he was manning the doors on the Canucks' bench and watching his colleague struggle in vain to bail out the strike force. By April 22, Vancouver had been bumped off the bracket after only five games.

Thomas, albeit with little choice due to Tuukka Rask’s injury, kept the Bruins afloat for three more days and two more games, plus two minutes and 53 seconds of overtime.

If Patrice Bergeron, who was playing with an upper-body injury, had buried a radiant opportunity in the first minute of sudden death, Thomas might still be scraping Boston’s blue paint this week.

If the Canucks had found a quick fix for Jonathan Quick, Schneider would most certainly have been the masked man of momentum getting the nod for the Western Conference semifinals.

Enough said.

Not much has changed regarding Thomas’ game in the last 10-plus months, apart from a tug back down to earth and a less joyous outcome to the season. Meanwhile, in the last 10-plus months, not much has changed regarding Luongo’s game except for the tug of a much shorter leash and an even more repugnant result than last year.