Roberto among greatest Canucks

Career here underrated

A point shy of history, Henrik Sedin is the greatest Canuck there ever was.

If you’re to chisel out the organization’s Mount Rushmore, Henrik is the George Washington, the first to be carved and the most prominent on display.

The remaining three slots are worthy of debate.

Trevor Linden was the heart and soul for nearly a decade.

Pavel Bure is in the Hockey Hall of Fame and Daniel Sedin is destined to be there, too.

Thing is, they can’t all make it.

Not with Roberto Luongo’s Vancouver career, which is both among the greatest in team history and the most underrated. He has to be there. Luongo, whose Florida Panthers play the Canucks tonight at Rogers Arena, is 37 now.

His career remains misunderstood by many fans but his place in the Hall has to be a slam dunk, even if he finishes a career without a Stanley Cup ring or a Vezina Trophy.

Consider, this is setting up to be his 15th consecutive full season in which he finishes above the league average in save percentage. It could be his eighth with a save percentage higher than .920.

In every full season since 2001, except for one, he’s played at least 55 games.

The consistency both in durability and performance are mind blowing.

He is among the greatest workhorse goalies the game has ever seen, a machine who is as good now as he was on June 23, 2006, the day the Canucks traded for him, a moment in time that changed everything.

What followed were the glory years.

With the Canucks, Luongo won 252 regular season games and 32 more in the playoffs.

In eight seasons here his winning percentage was .631.

It averages out to 104 points per season.

He remains the only elite goaltender to ever play for the Canucks through his prime and is so much better than any other netminder to wear a Vancouver uniform it’s insulting to make comparisons.

Alex Burrows remembers the trade that brought Luongo to Vancouver like it was an hour ago.

“We were getting a legit No. 1, a guy who played for his country,” Burrows said. “We were going to be a contender with a No. 1 goalie. “It was great.” In his first year with the Canucks, Luongo was a finalist for both the Hart and the Vezina Trophies.

“It does bring a lot of confidence when you have a top goalie in the game who can steal you games, win you games,” Burrows said.