VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Roberto Luongo put on his hoodie and his headphones and went for a walk along Vancouver's scenic seawall Friday afternoon.
He had been thumped in Boston, chased from the net, subjected again to criticism that he's not a big-game goalie despite his gold-medal triumph for Canada at the Vancouver Olympics. To lose again would have put a huge burden on his shoulders and those of his teammates.
"Sometimes I need to clear my head and put things in perspective," he said of his solitary walk after the team's pregame meal. "I had my head down just focusing on the journey and everything I needed to be ready for the game."
He was ready from start to finish, stopping 31 shots by the Bruins in a 1-0 victory at Rogers Arena that moved the Canucks within one triumph of winning the Stanley Cup.
Luongo and the Canucks can bring the Cup back to Canada for the first time since 1993 if they win Game 6 on Monday night at Boston's TD Garden. A seventh game, if necessary, would be played Wednesday in Vancouver, a city that has waited four decades to claim hockey's most cherished prize.
The Canucks have been outscored 14-6 in five games — the record for fewest goals in a six-game series in the finals is nine and has been done twice — but they've made their goals count. This was Luongo's second 1-0 shutout in the finals, following a 36-save performance in Game 1.
Maxim Lapierre provided the game's only goal Friday, flipping a shot past Tim Thomas at 4 minutes, 35 minutes of the third after defenseman Kevin Bieksa deliberately shot the puck wide of the net in hope of a fortunate carom.
That ended a shutout streak of 110:42 for Thomas and energized a roaring crowd in the arena and throngs watching on huge screens all over downtown Vancouver.
If Lapierre provided the offense, Luongo provided the backbone for an impressive rebound by the Canucks, who had been trounced 12-1 in losing Games 3 and 4 in Boston. Every game of this series has been won by the home team, but on Friday, Luongo gave the Canucks a chance to win the Cup by breaking that pattern on Monday.
"He played an unbelievable game, but we expected it out of him," Bieksa said. "It's no surprise. He's a big-time goalie."
The Canucks had to kill three straight penalties in the first period and four overall.
The Bruins took comfort from the notion of going home, where they had thrived and routed Luongo.
"We have to look at that as a positive," winger Milan Lucic said. "We've got to find a way to do it and dig deep to do it."