So Why Exactly Does Everyone Want Luongo Gone?

[suolucidir]

The thing about all these Luongo supporters is that they never hold him responsible in the slightest bit for letting in soft goals, inconsistency, having play-off meltdowns where he let's a high number of goals in a small number of shots, or just poor play in general. Its always that the team in front of him was playing like crap, defensive breakdowns, team left him out to dry...etc etc...Never any recognition of any shortcomings whatsoever. Only look at the positive and totally ignore the negative. Its like like they give him unwavering, unconditional support no matter what. Vezina trophy, best goalie the francise ever had blah blah. I'm sick of that crap.

[Boudrias]

Doing the same thing again and again huh?

You mean like pretending Mason Raymond is a top 6 forward?

Or pretending that we don't need a legit number 1 defenceman?

Or maybe that we can get by without toughness in the playoffs?

Or that we don't need a third line center that can actually put up points?

There's lots of things this team has had problems with that have never been adressed. Goaltending is a long ways down my list. I'm more concerned about the stuff I just listed.

[Ṣpiderman]

So much hatred and doubt towards Schneider in the OP. I would type an essay in response but it's not worth my time.

[Trebreh]

Honestly, this is not directed to the OP, but I dont know what's worse, a fanboy/girl or a bandwaggon fan.

I cannot understand how if your a fan of the Canucks as a whole team, not see how keeping the better, younger and cheaper goaltender the best move for this team going forward.

Lets say we keep Luongo and trade CS.

What happens if Luongo continues having meltdowns in the playoffs, letting in weak goals through his five hole and gets back to his prima donna attitude with noone pressuring him in his position?

It's hard enough to trade him while he's still sorta in his prime due to his contract, good luck trying to trade a 35-36 yr old goaltender who has the mental toughness of a 5 yr old with a life time contract AND a cap hit of 5m.

[ButterBean]

Unless Schneider can bring back a game-changing superstar our way, there is no reason to trade him and keep Luongo. Schneider is just an overall better goalie. Positionally, stats-wise, more poised in the net, and rarely lets in bad goals like Luongo does. The "games played" arguement works both ways, getting more starts like Luongo did gave him more rhythm which makes most goalies much more comfortable. The damage has been done, Luongo has had too many falters and inconsistencies with this team in the past few years. When we decided to put Schneider in net the last few games against L.A, that was the end of Luongo pretty much. Luongo will never be able to live with the fact that we decided to put Schneider in instead of him. You said Luongo puts the team first by waiving his NTC and Cory Schneider is selfish by wanting to start? Now you're just making up excuses, what goalie in their right mind wants to sit on the bench? Luongo is willing to waive his NTC because he realizes Schneider is better and he wants out of here.

[Trebreh]

Unless Schneider can bring back a game-changing superstar our way, there is no reason to trade him and keep Luongo. Schneider is just an overall better goalie. Positionally, stats-wise, more poised in the net, and rarely lets in bad goals like Luongo does. The "games played" arguement works both ways, getting more starts like Luongo did gave him more rhythm which makes most goalies much more comfortable. The damage has been done, Luongo has had too many falters and inconsistencies with this team in the past few years. When we decided to put Schneider in net the last few games against L.A, that was the end of Luongo pretty much. Luongo will never be able to live with the fact that we decided to put Schneider in instead of him. You said Luongo puts the team first by waiving his NTC and Cory Schneider is selfish by wanting to start? Now you're just making up excuses, what goalie in their right mind wants to sit on the bench? Luongo is willing to waive his NTC because he realizes Schneider is better and he wants out of here.

[RGC]

Now yes, I've been a Luongo fan ever since he became a Canuck. Sure, I've watched him carry this team in times of need and let them down in big situations as well, but all things aside, I cannot understand exactly why people want to run this guy out of town and go with Schneider when I consider the following points:

[DeNiro]

Honestly, this is not directed to the OP, but I dont know what's worse, a fanboy/girl or a bandwaggon fan.

I cannot understand how if your a fan of the Canucks as a whole team, not see how keeping the better, younger and cheaper goaltender the best move for this team going forward.

Lets say we keep Luongo and trade CS.

What happens if Luongo continues having meltdowns in the playoffs, letting in weak goals through his five hole and gets back to his prima donna attitude with noone pressuring him in his position?

It's hard enough to trade him while he's still sorta in his prime due to his contract, good luck trying to trade a 35-36 yr old goaltender who has the mental toughness of a 5 yr old with a life time contract AND a cap hit of 5m.

[RGC]

Yea because liking and believing in a certain player is worse than turning on a team when they don't win...Give your head a shake.

People are making assumptions that Schneider is the better goalie based on a very small sample size. Whenever you make an all in move like that, there tends to be risk involved.

I could just as easily say what if Luongo regains his Vezina calibre form next season and leads us to a cup? That's just as likely as Schneider all of a sudden being the solution for us.

[Pickly]

He was agreeing to the fact that the core group we have will never win a cup... You're listing more than just "some changes" there. I would consider those moves as dismantling the team.

The core group includes the Sedins, Kesler, Burrows, Bieksa, Edler, Hamhuis, and Hansen. You're including alot of our players by saying this core group can't win, when really he's basically

just saying we can't win with Luongo.

[DeNiro]

No, you couldn't, because Luongo's Vezina caliber form doesn't come with him in the playoffs, at least not all rounds of the playoffs. There was huge risk in trading for Luongo when he was deemed selfish (probably rightfully so) and inexperienced, though great as well, coming from Florida. There was big risk in that, but it worked out fairly well. Now the Canucks are almost over the top and another risk must be taken to push them over the top, and you don't want them to take the risk? What?

[Dream Theater]

It's because Luongo is a choke artist. He plays good one game and then screws you over the next. Game 1 and 2 of the finals he plays well, game 3 and 4 he screws the game. Game 5 he plays well, but in game 6 he blows the teams chance to win a cup. Game 7 is a write of as the whole team sucked. And yes, I still hold a grudge even after all this time. The guy came pretty close to blowing the gold medal game too from what I remember.

[CWM85]

I don't think it has anything to do with stats. Just watching Schneider in net you can tell he reads the plays well. He is always in position to make a solid saves (unless he is playing the puck). Lou has another 5 good years in net and 5 as a backup or retired. Schneider has 10 - 15 good years left in him. Im not a Lou hater i just think his best years are behind him and if we can get him off our books would be good for both us and him to move on then he can play the style and the number 1 he wants to be .

[Barry_Wilkins]

Now yes, I've been a Luongo fan ever since he became a Canuck. Sure, I've watched him carry this team in times of need and let them down in big situations as well, but all things aside, I cannot understand exactly why people want to run this guy out of town and go with Schneider when I consider the following points:

(1 )Was it because Schneider had a good season and looked great? He started just 28 regular season games and has 38 career wins to his name over 4 seasons, with only 2 really significant seasons as a backup. This guy is still a kid, no matter how many people say he's ready to become a starter. The biggest reason his numbers are so great is not because he's playing on a good team or because the team played better in front of him than Luongo, but because he played in spurts. Schneider would only ever play once or twice in a row which is much easier on a goalie mentally and physically. The only time he played a long string of games (7 consecutive when Luongo was injured), his play really deteriorated until he finally cracked on the 7th game, letting in 3 goals on around 15 shots in a period and they were all brutal goals. The biggest reason his stats looked so great was because of the few, scattered starts.

(2)Was it because Schneider excelled in the playoffs? Because I sincerely hope it wasn't. Schneider won just 1 playoff game and while he played well, these were nothing games for the Canucks. In all do respect to Vancouver, falling down 3-0 in the playoffs is essentially the end of any team's season so for me those final 2 starts Schneider played were nothing games. More importantly, the only reason Schneider was thrown in instead of Luongo was because of the team's disgusting play in front of him, so the playoffs should be completely ignored. If anything, Schneider was the one who ended up letting our team down, losing a goalie duel in the 3rd crucial game and a bad series-ending goal in whereas Luongo never got a chance to win a truly important, season-defining game for the Canucks which is unfair considering what he did last season.

(3)Is it because people think Schneider is ready to be a full-time NHL starting goalie? Like I said, Cory Schneider has less than 60 games of NHL experience over 4 years of being in the league, and has only really had 2 significant seasons. He is still a kid and has no idea how to handle a full schedule of games the way Luongo, a true professional, does. Of course the only way for him to learn is by trying him out in a full season and see how he goes, but I for one am not willing to risk our team's cup chances and our core's prime years on a coin toss to see whether or not this guy can handle the pressure of a full NHL season, because there's simply no backup plan there in case Schneider doesn't perform well, in which case our season and Cup hopes are down the drain for the next few years. For those comparing Schneider to Quick or Rinne, these guys stepped right into the NHL spotlight with a few 40-60 game seasons before they really started to play well, which is plenty of experience compared to Schneider's 2 20-game seasons.

(4)Is it because people think Eddie Lack is ready to be a full-time NHL backup goalie? Even if Schneider is going to be our starter, he will have to play less than 60 games to be even the slightest bit successful. We all know of the eerie stat going around that not many goalies in the last decade have won a Cup after playing more than 60 games in the regular season and our coaches and management are fully aware of this as well, getting Luongo's games down as much as possible to better ready him for the playoffs. So if Schneider is to play 60 games, we need a backup trustworthy and capable of at least 20-25 games, and sadly that is not Eddie Lack. This guy has no NHL experience whatsoever so we have no idea how he'll handle the jump from the AHL to NHL, and worst of all he has very limited AHL experience - just 2 seasons of limited games where he hasn't fared remarkably well in terms of wins (great numbers and has shined at times, but consistency may be an issue). All I ask from a backup playing 20-25 games is to have a record of at least 0.500 and I fear Lack may not be quite ready to win 15 NHL games in a season.

(5)Was it because Luongo had a few collapses in the playoffs last season? Just looking at the NHL this season, no goalie is ever perfect or plays his best over the entirety of his career, but we are lucky enough to have one of the most consistent and successful goalies in NHL history in Luongo. When you step back and look at his body of work, Luongo will go down in history as one of the best, and quite frankly Cory Schneider will be lucky if his career comes close to that of Luongo's. We have no idea how Schneider will perform in the playoffs or whether he will be able to win those clutch games like the big games Luongo has won in his career (game 7 against Chicago, Gold medal game, his Finals wins) and so I don't understand why we would risk finding out whether Schneider will be good enough when we have Luongo who we know IS good enough and who will come through in those big moments, time and time again.

(6)Is it because people think Luongo is past his prime? Firstly I'd like to say that the best way to win a Cup is by having a great core that works together well and hits their prime at the same time. We have the Sedins, Kesler, Bieksa, Hamhuis, Edler and Luongo as our core - all of whom are in or very close to their true prime right now. Last year was most possibly the peak of all of our core (as well as a few others), but that doesn't mean their window of opportunity is closed, because all of these guys are still capable of playing well. The problem with opting for Schneider over Luongo is that Schneider is far from his prime, especially as a young, inexperienced goalie. He's only had 2 proper backup seasons in the NHL and not many goalies hit their prime before their 5th season (goalies take much longer to develop), so during these years we would basically be wasting away the prime years of the rest of our core until Schneider finally develops into the best goalie he can be by which time we won't have much of a team in front of him. If we trade Luongo away, we might as well shuffle up our entire core to better suit Cory because it is almost impossible that he will hit his prime within the next one or two seasons after having played very little hockey.

(7)Is it because people think we can move Luongo easier? Yes Luongo's long-term contract doesn't look appealing, but a 5.3 million dollar cap hit is very flexible for a star goaltender these days and many teams are looking for not just a young goalie, but a bonified star who can help them now. Just look at Philadelphia last season, they traded away quite a bit of future talent for a proven star in Bryzgalov and now look where they are. Quite frankly, more teams are interested in a young, potential star goalie because they aren't looking at making a Cup run now (there aren't many teams left where a star goalie is the last piece in the puzzle, but the first piece in the puzzle) but later when their good prospects hit their prime and develop well, which is where we could get quite a bit more out of Cory Schneider. Struggling bottom-feeders are more willing to part with their stars now for a future star goalie in Schneider and harvest picks now to be better in the future anyway, which helps our cause as we get a good player in his prime now who can match our core better.

(7)Is it because people think Schneider is a friendlier, more likeable guy? It almost seems to me that Schneider is the one who wants more ice time and wants to be a starter, being a bit more selfish for more games whereas Luongo is willing to take one for the team and sit on the bench or even waive his no trade clause if need be to do what's best for the Canucks. If guys like Tuukka Rask can sit patiently behind an ageing Thomas for many years, then Schneider can wait longer than just 2 seasons and stop being so selfish. The last thing you want as an organization is to rush the development of your goaltender and I hate to see players go down the Hodgson-pathway like Schneider may be doing right now, but the thought of trading Kesler or the Sedins never crossed anyone's minds, despite the Sedins and Kesler struggling last playoffs and this season and Hodgson having a great rookie season.

So there you have it. Be careful what you wish for CDC, I have a bad feeling that trading Luongo will be the worst move in franchise history, far worse than the Hodgson-deal seemed at first, and will cost this team their opportunity to get back at the Finals. So what's your reason for hating on Luongo?

[RGC]

Actually Luongo's Vezina calibre form does follow him into the playoffs, unfortunately the teams President's trophy winning form doesn't.

All you have to do is look at his numbers to realize that those meltdown games are the exception, and are alot more rare than him stealing games for us. Funny how quickly people forget that Luongo was being talked about as the Conn Smythe winner up until the finals. If it wasn't for him, we don't even squeak by the 8th place Chicago.

A 2.53 GAA and .916 SV% in the playoffs over his 5 seasons in the playoffs says that he's been good enough for us to win. It's the defence that hasn't been unfortunately.

I don't think we need to take a risk at the goaltending position because I believe that we've had good enough goaltending every playoffs. What we do need to take a risk on is getting that number 1 defenceman that we've needed for the last 6 years. We've got alot of top 4 defenceman, but we don't have a number 1. That's what our focus should be on IMO.

[Trebreh]

Yea because liking and believing in a certain player is worse than turning on a team when they don't win...Give your head a shake.

People are making assumptions that Schneider is the better goalie based on a very small sample size. Whenever you make an all in move like that, there tends to be risk involved.

I could just as easily say what if Luongo regains his Vezina calibre form next season and leads us to a cup? That's just as likely as Schneider all of a sudden being the solution for us.

[LoganBattleaxe]

OP clearly has no eye for goaltending. Its not his stats or rest that make Schneider a better tender. Its his positioning, poise, reflexes and puck vision. Luongo loves those big dramatic saves but Schneider plays conservatively. He eats rebounds. He stops pucks. That is what he needs to do and that is what he does better than Roberto.

His mental fortitude is greater than Luongo's which is very important in the playoffs. Have you seen Schneider get rattled this year? No? That is a good trait.

OP questioned if Schneider could be the next Quick? They played against each other in college and the scouts always said Corey had the bigger upside. In manitoba where he played 2 full seasons he was fantastic but its his play in the nhl that has everyone in the goalie scouting world saying he is the better tender.

While I always will love Luongo I understand that the goal of the 82 game season is to make the playoffs and win the cup. Schneider gives the Canucks the best chance at doing this. Not just because of his greater skill but also because his cap hit will be less which allows Gillis more wiggle room to sign a 2nd line rw to play with kes.

The only reason to trade Schneider is for better picks but this year is a bad draft year in general. Best to wait a couple years for Lacks value to increase and make a trade then.

[WEEWILLY01]

This core is not going to win a cup. Flame me all you want, but the team had it's shot last year.

[cIutch]

weird , cody hodgson has alright season = next crosby

cory has good season = dont trust him

[DeNiro]

Thats one thing, but making up one sided bias towards a certain player because you like Luongo is another.

You've done nothing but tried to convince people that CS could be a bust because 'he's unproven'.

His Vezina calibre for was 5 years ago when he was 27... his on the decline of his career, what has he shown you in the past couple of seasons that he will regain that form?

Tell me which current star player came in the leauge as a STAR? like everyone knew he would be a star? the answer is NONE, every player in every sport started off as 'unproven'. Brouder,Roy,Fuhr,Gretzky all the legends in sports started off as unproven, so i dont buy that crap.

Like I said, you and every Luongo fans out there are banking on Luongo getting back to his old form (doubt it).

If he doesnt? what option do we have? We probably wouldnt get what we think we'll get for him because of his contract, but imagine trying to trade him when he's 35-36 and washed up with a 5m dollar cap hit for 6-7 more years? Were preety much stuck with him if we keep him.

Now before you make a Thomas refrence, let me just say, Thomas was a late bloomer and is in his hockey prime right now despite his age. lol

Everyone in the leauge knows and says CS is the better goaltender of the two at this stage of their careers except.... you guessed it, Luongo fans.