Torts praises Roberto Luongo and refuses to rip Dan Hamhuis after he scores on own team

Famously fiery Canucks coach John Tortorella sounded surprisingly calm after defenceman Dan Hamhuis scored on his own team in a 4-1 loss against the Montreal Canadiens.

On a second-period Canucks power play with the game tied 1-1, Hamhuis's clearing pass ricocheted off goalie Roberto Luongo's skate and into the back of the net. 

"Up until that point, I think we played a really good hockey game," Tortorella said in last night's postgame news conference. "We talked about how that wasn't going to beat us. We needed to move by it, but we certainly didn't play a good third period."

He added that Luongo played exceptionally well—and that the Hamhuis error was a "tough one to eat"

"It happens, but we have to be resilient enough to handle those type of situations," the coach said. "We're going to have more of those over the year. If that caused a problem in the third period, then we need to learn from it, to find a way to have some sort of resiliency."

The Canadiens put the game away in the third period with two unanswered goals.

Canadiens goalie Carey Price stopped 30 of 31 shots in the first two periods. He had a much easier time in the third period, turning aside nine shots.

"We've got to give Price some credit," Tortorella said. "He played really well."

The Canucks embark on a nine-game road trip, beginning on Tuesday (Ocober 15) in Philadelphia.