A Question About Luongo's Current Contract

[Gollumpus]

I think Luongo would rather retire or be traded than be bought out. That would probably be to humiliating for such a high ranked goalie to allow themselves to be bought out.

A trade where he was a cap dump, (where the other team chooses to get Luongo for basically nothing) would be preferential over a buyout. If it were impossible for him to be traded, then that would be pretty much a clear sign for Luongo to retire, rather than be bought out or buried in the minors,

[The Colt 45s]

All depends upon the new collective bargaining agreement.

[Watermelons]

It's long, but that's really about it. The cap-hit is extremely reasonable.

You'll soon realize that most fans are rather misinformed. They're fans of a particular team, but I wouldn't call them fans of hockey, if you get what I mean.

[Schnieds]

I wrote these 2 posts on another thread but didn't get any answers so maybe I'll post them here and someone can argue them.

The move that bugs me most bout Mr. Gillis is giving Luongo a 12 year contract. Why do I think it's a bad contract? In the history of the NHL, only ONE goalie has gotten a longer term deal than Luongo and that would be the great Rick Dipietro. So it's either Gillis is a genius or the other 28 GMs are idiots. Guess which one I'm gonna pick? Arguably the greatest goalie who ever lived, Martin Brodeur just finished off a 6 year deal. If Lou Lamerello can convince Brodeur to a 6 year deal, why can't Gillis convince Luongo to take a shorter term? Another example, Jonathan Quick, coming off a Stanley Cup victory agrees to a 10 year deal and he's only 26, 5 years younger than when Luongo signed his 12 year deal. Why can Lombardi convince him to take a shorter term deal and Gillis can't? Now I know what you're all gonna say, Gillis did it to lower the cap hit. True. But it's more of a cover up to save cap room for all the other boneheaded moves he's made like getting Keith Ballard. So tell me, how can every other GM except NYI sign their goalies to under a 7 or 8 year deal and still manage to ice a competitive team? But not us? Instead of negotiating with Luongo like a good GM is suppose to do, Gillis took the easy way out and offered him a 12 year deal. Why? He didn't deserve it, Canucks just came off a series lost to Chicago in which he was pretty bad. If Lou demanded that contract, then I say trade him or let him walk. Afterall, you work for me, not the other way around. Every GM is hired to be fired, Gillis knows he would've been long fired by the time Luongo's deal was to expire. So he doesen't care what happens in 12 years. Like I said on another thread, a good GM will build a winning team by spending to the max, it takes a GREAT GM to build a winning team and still have cap space left over. Gillis is not a great GM.

I would've given Luongo a 7 year deal max at a 6 mil cap hit which at the time would've placed him FOURTH in the league behind Lundqvist, Ward and Miller in terms of cap hit. So what if we gotta pay him another $666,667? It means we can't sign Desbiens. Oh no, what a huge lost! For a goalie who has won nothing in the NHL, that's a pretty damn good pay. If he don't like it, MG should be more than willing to drive him to the airport

[Tragoedia]

I wrote these 2 posts on another thread but didn't get any answers so maybe I'll post them here and someone can argue them.

The move that bugs me most bout Mr. Gillis is giving Luongo a 12 year contract. Why do I think it's a bad contract? In the history of the NHL, only ONE goalie has gotten a longer term deal than Luongo and that would be the great Rick Dipietro. So it's either Gillis is a genius or the other 28 GMs are idiots. Guess which one I'm gonna pick? Arguably the greatest goalie who ever lived, Martin Brodeur just finished off a 6 year deal. If Lou Lamerello can convince Brodeur to a 6 year deal, why can't Gillis convince Luongo to take a shorter term? Another example, Jonathan Quick, coming off a Stanley Cup victory agrees to a 10 year deal and he's only 26, 5 years younger than when Luongo signed his 12 year deal. Why can Lombardi convince him to take a shorter term deal and Gillis can't? Now I know what you're all gonna say, Gillis did it to lower the cap hit. True. But it's more of a cover up to save cap room for all the other boneheaded moves he's made like getting Keith Ballard. So tell me, how can every other GM except NYI sign their goalies to under a 7 or 8 year deal and still manage to ice a competitive team? But not us? Instead of negotiating with Luongo like a good GM is suppose to do, Gillis took the easy way out and offered him a 12 year deal. Why? He didn't deserve it, Canucks just came off a series lost to Chicago in which he was pretty bad. If Lou demanded that contract, then I say trade him or let him walk. Afterall, you work for me, not the other way around. Every GM is hired to be fired, Gillis knows he would've been long fired by the time Luongo's deal was to expire. So he doesen't care what happens in 12 years. Like I said on another thread, a good GM will build a winning team by spending to the max, it takes a GREAT GM to build a winning team and still have cap space left over. Gillis is not a great GM.

I would've given Luongo a 7 year deal max at a 6 mil cap hit which at the time would've placed him FOURTH in the league behind Lundqvist, Ward and Miller in terms of cap hit. So what if we gotta pay him another $666,667? It means we can't sign Desbiens. Oh no, what a huge lost! For a goalie who has won nothing in the NHL, that's a pretty damn good pay. If he don't like it, MG should be more than willing to drive him to the airport

[That Commentator]

Agreed. I still see fans everywhere saying Luongo is the "most overpaid goalie in the league" he makes "$10 million a season" (only true for one season)...Honestly, how much he makes doesn't even matter to fans because we aren't paying him...the cap hit is the only thing that does matter and Luongo's is very reasonable for an elite goalie in the NHL.

And after all the ridiculous contracts handed out recently, there is no reason to be bashing Luongo's...the main fault of the contract is (as you said) the length, which is closer to 7 years in my opinion. I say this because he only makes $1 million a year in those last 3 years and is expected to retire, without any consequence on the cap.

So the contract is only 7 years, bringing him to a total of 40 years old.

[That Commentator]

I wrote these 2 posts on another thread but didn't get any answers so maybe I'll post them here and someone can argue them.

The move that bugs me most bout Mr. Gillis is giving Luongo a 12 year contract. Why do I think it's a bad contract? In the history of the NHL, only ONE goalie has gotten a longer term deal than Luongo and that would be the great Rick Dipietro. So it's either Gillis is a genius or the other 28 GMs are idiots. Guess which one I'm gonna pick? Arguably the greatest goalie who ever lived, Martin Brodeur just finished off a 6 year deal. If Lou Lamerello can convince Brodeur to a 6 year deal, why can't Gillis convince Luongo to take a shorter term? Another example, Jonathan Quick, coming off a Stanley Cup victory agrees to a 10 year deal and he's only 26, 5 years younger than when Luongo signed his 12 year deal. Why can Lombardi convince him to take a shorter term deal and Gillis can't? Now I know what you're all gonna say, Gillis did it to lower the cap hit. True. But it's more of a cover up to save cap room for all the other boneheaded moves he's made like getting Keith Ballard. So tell me, how can every other GM except NYI sign their goalies to under a 7 or 8 year deal and still manage to ice a competitive team? But not us? Instead of negotiating with Luongo like a good GM is suppose to do, Gillis took the easy way out and offered him a 12 year deal. Why? He didn't deserve it, Canucks just came off a series lost to Chicago in which he was pretty bad. If Lou demanded that contract, then I say trade him or let him walk. Afterall, you work for me, not the other way around. Every GM is hired to be fired, Gillis knows he would've been long fired by the time Luongo's deal was to expire. So he doesen't care what happens in 12 years. Like I said on another thread, a good GM will build a winning team by spending to the max, it takes a GREAT GM to build a winning team and still have cap space left over. Gillis is not a great GM.

I would've given Luongo a 7 year deal max at a 6 mil cap hit which at the time would've placed him FOURTH in the league behind Lundqvist, Ward and Miller in terms of cap hit. So what if we gotta pay him another $666,667? It means we can't sign Desbiens. Oh no, what a huge lost! For a goalie who has won nothing in the NHL, that's a pretty damn good pay. If he don't like it, MG should be more than willing to drive him to the airport

[Schnieds]

There are several problems with your argument.

1. Yes, only one goalie has a longer contract right now, and that goalie has had a ton of injury problems and therefore, DiPietro's contract looks pretty bad. Luongo is not DiPietro though, and "other teams didn't sign their goalies to contracts of this length" is not a good reason to avoid doing so. This doesn't mean the GMs that did or didn't give out these contracts are idiots.

2. Why can't MG convince him to sign a shorter contract? Probably because he didn't want to. As you said, with a longer contract, there's a lower cap hit than there would have been otherwise. Maybe he would also take less money per year for a little extra security, which means an even lower cap hit. We don't know what we would have had to pay him had the contract been a shorter term.

3. Quick is not Luongo, and 10 years is still a long term contract. You're making a huge deal out of a difference of 2 years. Gillis was not around when we acquired Luongo, so at that point (when he was around Quick's age) he didn't get to choose what type of contract we signed him to. They're totally different situations.

4. Ballard has nothing to do with the Luongo deal. Having extra cap space is always good, whether it's to "cover" for something else or not. That's a terrible and totally illogical point to make. Even if all of our other contracts were a perfect value, the extra cap space will still allow us to improve. I recall you also bringing up Ballard in another post where you were sucking up to Sather for being such a brilliant GM. Nevermind that the Rangers are paying Redden 6.5 million/season to play in the minors. You do realize that Ballard could be sent to the minors if they needed to clear the cap space, right? I'm sure that if that was done, you'd still complain about how terrible his contract is.

5. It's nice that you would've given him a 7 year contract with a higher cap hit, and you just assume that he would accept that contract. So what? If I was the owner of a team, I sure wouldn't make you my GM. It's funny how some people criticize MG for not making any bold moves, but we have Luongo's contract, for which your main criticism is that other teams don't do these types of contracts. Oh yes, and you're saying that because Luongo "hasn't won anything", he doesn't deserve a big contract. By that logic, Rinne and Lundqvist don't deserve their massive paydays either, do they? Are you forgetting that each season there are 29 teams that do not win the cup? And Luongo is not the only player on the team, it's not all up to him.

6. Desbiens is here for depth, or perhaps the 4th line. Non-roster players do not count against the cap. If he's playing on the 4th line, then ok... he's occupying a roster spot. The number of roster spots we use up doesn't change, so having to pay Luongo another $666K has absolutely nothing to do with us not being able to sign an extra player, it just means that we'll have to downgrade elsewhere, or we won't be able to upgrade when we need to.

[Watermelons]

I would've given Luongo a 7 year deal max at a 6 mil cap hit which at the time would've placed him FOURTH in the league behind Lundqvist, Ward and Miller in terms of cap hit. So what if we gotta pay him another $666,667? It means we can't sign Desbiens. Oh no, what a huge lost! For a goalie who has won nothing in the NHL, that's a pretty damn good pay. If he don't like it, MG should be more than willing to drive him to the airport

[That Commentator]

I wrote these 2 posts on another thread but didn't get any answers so maybe I'll post them here and someone can argue them.

[King Heffy]

Cool, Nashville should drive Rinne to the airport, Calgary should drive Kipper to the airport, Minnesota should drive Backstrom to the airport and Carolina should drive Ward to the airport as well right?

[Schnieds]

Cool, Nashville should drive Rinne to the airport, Calgary should drive Kipper to the airport, Minnesota should drive Backstrom to the airport and Carolina should drive Ward to the airport as well right?

How many of them have the same credentials as Luongo? 3 international gold medals (including one in the Olympics) and 2 international silver medals....60 career regular season shutouts, and 5 more in the playoffs - including 2 in the Stanley Cup Finals....

Like i have said many times, I believe Gillis and Luongo signed a 9 year contract (so 7 years left). First, in the last 3 years, Luongo only makes 1 million dollars so the chances of him playing are VERY VERY slim. The contract was signed with the idea that Luongo would retire after the 9th season WITHOUT any cap consequence for the team....The main reason for the 12 year length was just to lower the cap hit.

[Watermelons]

Not the same credentials as Luongo huh? I'll start with Rinne. 138 career wins in 250 games played. A winning percentage of 0.55 Kipper has 311 wins in 599 games, winning percentage of 0.52. Luongo 339 wins in 727 games, a winning percentage of 0.47. But i know what you're gonna say, Luongo played for a very crappy Panthers team. But yet you think it's fair to compare him to KIpper who has played on a bad team for years. At least compare Luongo to a goalie of similiar age and experience. Saying Luongo won gold in the olympics means nothing. DId you forget he played on a very very stacked and heavily favorited Team Canada? Anything short of a gold would be a huge dissapointment. I'm sure even you can agree with that. Kipper on the other hand helped an average team Finland win Bronze in the same olympics. That to me is more of an accomplishment than Luongo winning gold. And lets not forget, Luongo is suppose to be good. Drafted 1st round 4th overall, compared to Kipper 5th round 116th overall and Rinne at 8th round 258th overall. So those 2 with better stats than Luongo is the reason why their salaries are higher.

But since you wanna talk stats, lets talk about the important stats. Playoff stats. Rinne has a career 2.44 GAA, .915 save percentage, Kipper is at 2.32 GAA, .921 save percentage and Luongo is 2.73 GAA and .911 save percentage.

And I don't ever recall saying I was fans of Backstrom and Ward's contract. But Ward does have a Stanley Cup on his resume. You know? That shiney silver cup Buttman presents to one team every June? But my argument has never been about what they're paid, it's the length of the contract.

[Watermelons]

Not the same credentials as Luongo huh? I'll start with Rinne. 138 career wins in 250 games played. A winning percentage of 0.55 Kipper has 311 wins in 599 games, winning percentage of 0.52. Luongo 339 wins in 727 games, a winning percentage of 0.47. But i know what you're gonna say, Luongo played for a very crappy Panthers team. But yet you think it's fair to compare him to KIpper who has played on a bad team for years. At least compare Luongo to a goalie of similiar age and experience. Saying Luongo won gold in the olympics means nothing. DId you forget he played on a very very stacked and heavily favorited Team Canada? Anything short of a gold would be a huge dissapointment. I'm sure even you can agree with that. Kipper on the other hand helped an average team Finland win Bronze in the same olympics. That to me is more of an accomplishment than Luongo winning gold. And lets not forget, Luongo is suppose to be good. Drafted 1st round 4th overall, compared to Kipper 5th round 116th overall and Rinne at 8th round 258th overall. So those 2 with better stats than Luongo is the reason why their salaries are higher.

But since you wanna talk stats, lets talk about the important stats. Playoff stats. Rinne has a career 2.44 GAA, .915 save percentage, Kipper is at 2.32 GAA, .921 save percentage and Luongo is 2.73 GAA and .911 save percentage.

And I don't ever recall saying I was fans of Backstrom and Ward's contract. But Ward does have a Stanley Cup on his resume. You know? That shiney silver cup Buttman presents to one team every June? But my argument has never been about what they're paid, it's the length of the contract.

[Watermelons]

Not sure how you figure Ward hasn't accomplished anything at the NHL level.

[GHL]

No one should be complaining about Luongo's contract. MG has sculpted it perfectly, a rediculously low cap hit for one of the best goalies in the NHL, probably the best value goaltender in the league under a proper contract (that isn't including Quick before his extension etc, only including goalies who have earned their new contract after playing in their prime).

People forget guys like Rinne, Miller and Lundqvist have much tougher cap hits of 6 and 7 million which, when compared to a 5.3 million cap hit, is unreasonable.

The best thing about the long contract is that when the cap hit finally does catch up to Luongo in about 5 seasons time when his play starts to deteriorate (of which it hasn't yet, contrary to many's beliefs) he can easily be burried in the minors and his 5.3 million cap hit won't count to the team. By this time Schneider will truly be in his prime and the team will have smoothly transitioned between goaltenders. If we trade Luongo now we have no backup plan in case Schneider can't deal with a full workload, but if we keep Luongo until his play starts to decline then we have a good tandem and a safety net.