Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Roberto Luongo ought to remember your best penalty killer is your goalie.

LOS ANGELES -- It is a little bit disconcerting that the Vancouver Canucks apparently believed this was going to a lot easier than it is turning out to be.

But this is worse, from the mouth of goaltender Roberto Luongo:

"We've got to lay it on the line when we're killing (penalties)," Luongo said after Monday's Game 3 loss, from which he was yanked. "We've got to block some shots, take some rebounds away… I'm trying to make the first save.

"Shots from the point are getting through," Luongo lamented. "Rebounds, stuff like that. They've got lots of traffic at the net. It's my job to fight through it…"

That, Canucks fan, is your goalie throwing the penalty killers under the bus.

Not that they don't deserve it, after another horrendous effort in which the Los Angeles Kings' power play went 3-for-3, upping their series percentage to an incredible 58 per cent (7-for-12).

This, however, is a time in the evolution of the Canucks that requires sticking together. It requires a long look in the mirror by each and every player -- not for the goalie, who played poorly himself, to be shifting blame on to his skaters.

Even if it deserved.

Head coach Alain Vigneault, for one, isn't planning on making any changes. Nor is he dwelling on the disallowed goal, lest somebody make an excuse of it.

"These are the people who got us here," he said. "Roberto is our guy. Just like the twins are our guys. You need your best players to be your best players … and tonight the Sedins had (zero) shots after two periods."

The line they were playing against -- Michal Handzus, Fredrik Modin and Brad Richardson -- had 10.

So, here's the deal, folks. Plain and simple.

The Los Angeles Kings want this more.

One team doing the little things -- and getting the goaltending -- that the other team is not. One team is throwing themselves into this series, the other is trying to tiptoe through it.

"Shot blocking is a lot of it. In the first period they had 14 to our four," Vigneault said. "A lot of that is willingness to get in front of the shots. If it is our expectation to win this series, we're going to have to be better at that."

Better at everything, Mikael Samuelsson figures. He has seen the many different elements of a winner from up close during his time in Detroit, and he says it goes far beyond just the PK.

"I wish it was that simple: block more shots and we win," said Samuelsson, who notched his fourth goal of the post-season Monday. "That is not enough. It's a lot of things."

There is only one team in this Western Conference quarter-final that appears to have no regard for personal welfare. One team that's getting up after Alex Edler knocks them on their can, and coming back even harder.

And there is only one team with a 2-1 series lead now, and anyone reading this column does not need to be reminded who that is this morning.

It doesn't mean that this can't all change. In the ebb and flow of playoff hockey, the call is out for the Vancouver Canucks to seize this series back in Game 4. That would mean it's a best-of-three, with two of the games set for GM Place.

So who needs to get called out?

Luongo, for sure. He was brutal in Game 3.

Alex Burrows, no doubt. Zero points, seven shots on goal and not nearly enough of a distraction through three games.

Sami Salo, absolutely. One assist in three games isn't going to cut it, big guy. Not when Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson have five points apiece.

The twins? Let's go boys.

This thing is far from over, but the onus now falls to Vancouver to get better -- individually and collectively.

The Canucks were never able to steal that momentum back from the Chicago Blackhawks last spring, losing the final three games of their second-round series against the Blackhawks after having led it two games to one. But shot blocking and general effort can be amended with relative ease.

And Luongo? It is time for him to take a loooong look in the mirror.

They say your best penalty killer is your goalie, though no one is referencing that old tenet of the game these days in the Canucks dressing room.

Either they start talking that way soon, or it's going to be a mighty long summer in Vancouver.