"As soon as Roberto Luongo walked into the dressing room, he was surrounded – swarmed, really. The reporters were on all sides, overflowing out the door and into the hallway. Voice recorders pressed inches from his lips. Boom mics almost brushed the bill of his cap. TV cameras and spotlights pointed at his face, held high by men on stepstools, hoping to get a clear angle above the horde.

Luongo spoke for about three minutes. He actually asked the key question.

"I've got to believe in myself, right?" he said.

Right there is the heart of this enigma, the Jekyll and Hyde of elite goaltenders, the guy who can get pulled and then pitch a shutout and then get pulled again in the Stanley Cup Final. After another Luongo meltdown Monday night and a 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins, the Canucks' dream season has been reduced to a Game 7 on Wednesday night in Vancouver.

It hinges on somebody who has bounced back before but always leaves you wondering if he can bounce back again – and why he has to keep bouncing back like this at all. It could be a defining moment for Luongo, but you wonder whether he has already defined himself, no matter what he does now.

Luongo will start Wednesday night. "I haven't talked to him," Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said. "He knows he's going back in next game. He's going to be real good." All the Canucks can do is shrug this off, act like it's no big deal and hope their $10 million man does the same. They have to inspire confidence in him, because he struggles to inspire it in himself sometimes, leaving his opponents to take advantage.

This is an Olympic gold medalist. This is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's best goaltender. When Luongo is good, he's among the best. In three home games in this series, he is 3-0 with a .979 save percentage and two shutouts.

But he is also a brooder. He invites self-doubt and doubters, and when he self-destructs, he's spectacular. In three road games in this series, he is 0-3 with a .773 save percentage and has been pulled twice.

Luongo gave up 12 goals over Games 3 and 4 in Boston. He bounced back with a 1-0 shutout in Game 5 in Vancouver, but afterward, he set himself up for Game 6, when he allowed three goals on eight shots and got yanked just 8:35 into the first period in front of delighted, howling fans at TD Garden.

It really wasn't what Luongo said about Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas – that he would have made the save on the winning goal in Game 5, because he plays deeper in his crease and has an easier time when pucks ricochet off the end boards. He was giving an honest answer to a question about goaltending style. He said Thomas makes some saves he doesn't, too.

"It was an innocuous comment," said Cory Schneider, Luongo's backup. "It was taken out of context."

But the story became the story, and it swallowed Luongo whole. The media blew it up. Reporters ran to Thomas and Bruins coach Claude Julien and drew some juicy sound bites. Luongo followed up by saying he had been pumping Thomas' tires but Thomas hadn't said anything nice about him, making him sound insecure, craving for respect."