Considering that he faces slap shots for a living, you would think Roberto Luongo could handle just about anything else that comes his way. But in the week leading into last month’s all-star break—the last time Luongo played a home game at G. M. Place—it was apparent that the Canucks star netminder didn’t appreciate facing the heat in a hockey market like this one.

He didn’t take kindly to suggestions that his less than Luongo-like performances had anything to do with his team going more than one month between regulation wins.

When he stopped Keith Tkachuk in the fourth round of a shootout to give the Canucks a 3-2 comeback win over the St. Louis Blues on January 23—and send his team into the break on a seemingly positive note—Luongo celebrated with an arm pump.

And another. And another after that.

It was more emotion than the fiercely competitive 28-year-old usually shows, and it looked like he was not only pumping his arm in victory but also shaking a fist at those fans and media who had dared to question his recent run of indifferent play.

“I wish I could pitch 82 shutouts for you guys,” Luongo pointedly told the assembled media horde that gathered around him the morning of the St. Louis game. “But in the real world, you go through ups and downs. You can’t be at the top of your game throughout a whole year. It’s physically impossible. Every goalie in the NHL goes through it every year.”

If anyone in the National Hockey League is entitled to the occasional off night, it’s Luongo, who has carried the Canucks on his back for the year-and-a-half he’s been here. But with success comes expectations, and considering how he stopped virtually everything that came his way in November and most of December (he missed a week due to a rib injury), Luongo gave Canucks fans every reason to believe he’d continue to play the way he did during arguably the greatest seven-week run of goaltending the city has ever seen.

Less than 18 months after being acquired, Luongo was being hailed as one of the greatest Canucks of all time and one of the most influential figures in Vancouver’s sports history. He was the toast of the town, and the media was running out of superlatives to describe his play. On top of that, he was recently the fans’ choice to start the all-star game (which he took a pass on to spend time with his pregnant wife).

He didn’t seem to have a problem with any of that praise, but starting with a couple of weak goals against the New York Islanders on January 8—the kinds of goals he wasn’t giving up earlier in the season—Luongo’s play tailed off. And the Canucks have shown that they just don’t have the firepower to win on a regular basis when their star stopper is giving up three or—gasp!—even four goals a night. So when Luongo’s level of play dropped a notch, not surprisingly so did his team’s results.

Perhaps when he was a Florida Panther, a few suspect outings in a row would have gone unnoticed. But when you play the most important position on the most important team in a hockey city like this one, both fans and the media will lock on to your mistakes. And when you’re also the highest-paid player on a team that has its every move analyzed and every game dissected, then expect some tough reviews, because they come with the territory. Luongo has to accept that.

“Right now, I don’t feel I’m at my best, but I don’t feel I’m costing the team games, either,” Luongo said, sounding like he wasn’t interested in shouldering the blame for losses to nonplayoff teams like the Columbus Blue Jackets and Los Angeles Kings.

The buck—and the puck—must stop with Luongo. It’s as simple as that. No one’s expecting perfection from him, but he will have to be better over the final two months of the regular season than he was during January if the Canucks are to secure a playoff spot. Deep down, he must know that, even if he won’t admit it publicly.

Luongo and the Canucks’ post-all-star stretch hardly started they way they wanted with a pair of 4-3 losses in Tampa Bay and Florida. With losses mounting, the pressure will continue to rise on the star netminder who hasn’t played a home game since that St. Louis victory. The Canucks open a four-game home stand against the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday (February 9), which starts a run of seven of the next nine games on home ice.

It’s crunch time for the Canucks. Their lacklustre play last month invited a bunch of teams behind them in the standings back into the playoff chase. So the last thing they need is their goalie to come home from the road and feel he’s being unjustly treated in this city.

Luongo has proven countless times he’s one of the best goalies in the world—if not the best of the lot. And hockey fans here are hoping he proves it again down the stretch in this National Hockey League season. Certainly, he’ll allow some goals and he’ll even lose some hockey games, but he simply can’t allow the scrutiny in this city to get to him.

He has stated he wants to be “the guy” in goal for Team Canada at the 2010 Olympics. If Luongo thinks he’s getting harshly criticized and his every move placed under the microscope now, he hasn’t seen anything yet—especially if the Games don’t yield gold for the host country.

He’d be wise to take a step back right now and realize that the only reason people here want answers is because they care. And that’s not a bad thing. As long as Luongo is a member of the Canucks, there will be fans with lofty expectations and media with things to write and say about his performances. Luongo can take his game to the next level when the chips are down and the Canucks need that next save. Now he must find a way to rise above when the heat is on him and he’s off the ice.

The surest way to lose the off-ice distractions is to get his game back to where it was earlier in the season or in the playoffs last year. That would solve most of Luongo’s problems—and those of his hockey team, too.

Jeff Paterson is a sportscaster and talk-show host on Vancouver’s all-sports radio, Team 1040. E-mail him at jeff.paterson@team1040.ca.