The future of Luongo
I always want to put the team ahead of me ROBERTO LUONGO
Roberto Luongo has seen the handwriting on the dressing room wall and revealed Tuesday that he will waive his notrade clause if Vancouver Canucks management feels dealing the highpriced veteran goalie this is the best move for the NHL team.
Luongo, 33, was supplanted by Cory Schneider during the Canucks’ final three playoff games and even he admitted that Schneider is a budding superstar. Schneider is seven years younger than Luongo and his numbers this past season, playing behind the same defence, were vastly superior to Luongo’s both during the regular season and the brief playoff run.
Asked if he would waive the notrade clause, Luongo replied: “Yeah, of course, if they ask me to. I don’t want to be one of those guys who is going to stand in the way of anything. I always want to put the team ahead of me. I don’t want to be one of those selfish guys.”
He added: “Obviously they have a guy here who is going to be a superstar in this league for the next 10, 12, 15 years, so I’m OK with it. It is a business and that’s the way it goes. I’ve loved being here the last six years. If I’m here in the future, then great. If I’m not, that’s good also.”
Luongo still has 10 years and about $47 million left on his whopper of a contract. His cap hit is $5.33 million.
Schneider, meanwhile, stands to become a restricted free agent July 1. He made $900,000 each of the last two seasons and is in line for a nice bump in pay.
It seems difficult to envision any scenario next season in which Luongo and Schneider are both back with the Canucks. Luongo is a career No. 1 starter and Schneider appears ready for the same status.
Trading Luongo would fetch an asset, or assets, in return while also freeing up cap space.
“I’m not sure what I would do if I was GM,” Luongo said. “It’s a very unique circumstance we’re in, I think, where we have an elite young guy who is up and coming and is probably going to dominate the league for many years. Cory was in a spot where he earned a playoff start. He had played extremely well, not only this year, but last year as well.
“Like I mentioned, it’s going to be what’s best for the team,” he continued. “Whether that involves me being here or not, is OK. I’ve learned over the course of my career that things change quickly. With anything, you don’t want to look too far ahead because life has a lot of curve balls.”
Luongo said he and Canucks GM Mike Gillis have already met once and will meet again to “draw up a plan.”
Gillis said that Schneider’s sublime play has altered management’s thinking.
“The emergence of Cory to be so outstanding as a young goalie changes the landscape,” Gillis said Tuesday. “We’re in the middle of a changing landscape that we need to evaluate properly. It isn’t by accident that we played Cory in those (tough) games this year. We wanted to see if he was capable of being as good as we thought he was — and he is.” Schneider, who has said all the right things throughout this changing of the guard, did so again Tuesday. He praised Luongo for his accomplishments and guidance, but also conceded that neither would be happy wearing a ball cap for large stretches next season.
“I’m not a young prospect anymore, I’m 26, “Schneider said. “Roberto and I are both proud guys, we’re both competitors and we want to play. It’s tough for either one of us to sit out, especially considering that he’s been one of the most dominant goalies the past decade in this league and he still has plenty of good years left.
“If I could accomplish half of what he’s done thus far, I think that would be a pretty good career. I learned a lot from him.”
Asked if he would like to sign a long-term deal with the Canucks, assuming such a deal were offered, Schneider said he hasn’t peered that far ahead.
“It’s something I haven’t discussed with my agent and my family,” he said. “We haven’t spoken to the team at all, so I don’t know what they’re thinking.”