It's mid-August, and for action-starved hockey fans, there are three questions that are dominating the NHL landscape.
1. Is there going to be a lockout this fall?
2. Where will Shane Doan sign?
3. When are the Vancouver Canucks going to move Roberto Luongo?
The best news on the lockout front is that the NHL Players Association is confident that a new collective bargaining agreement can be completed by September 15. Doan, meanwhile, will almost certainly be signed somewhere by that time, with the New York Rangers looking like the most likely option should the Phoenix Coyotes captain choose to leave the Arizona desert (Quick thought: the Rangers have the best combination of a Stanley Cup contending team and a "win now" mentality that will motivate them to sign Doan for four years).
Luongo, on the other hand, is much tougher to figure out. It's been more than two months since the news that the All-Star goaltender was asking for a trade, and no trade has come. It's probably the most anticipated deal that hasn't happened yet, so what's the hold up?
Well, in short, the reason the Canucks are looking to trade Luongo is the reason it's so hard: There's only one starting goaltender. In Vancouver, that man is now Cory Schneider, so that's why Luongo is out. Elsewhere, it's someone else, and that guy's team just might like it that way.
When an NHL team is looking to trade a forward or a defenseman, the team has 29 conceivable trading partners. Needs may vary from team to team, but for the most part, with teams putting 12 forwards and six defenseman onto the ice every night, there's usually room for another skater if the player is desirable enough. On the other hand, when you trade for a goaltender, you're effectively replacing your own. That forces the general manager to think longer and harder about the question, "How much better off am I with this guy than with the guy I've already got?"
For some teams, the answer is "not at all," and that answer eliminates potential trading partners right off the bat. For other teams, the answer is "a bit, maybe, but not enough to justify the risk and disruption of team chemistry." All told, among the 15 teams besides the Canucks that made the playoffs this past season, there were really only five teams, at most, for whom Luongo could conceivably make sense: the Blackhawks, Sharks, Senators, Panthers and Capitals. The Capitals believe they've found their next big thing in Braden Holtby, while the Sharks' salary cap situation isn't conducive to an acquisition, and for whatever reason, the Senators never really came up (and to be fair, Craig Anderson did a great job in 2011-12). That left the Panthers and Blackhawks, with the Toronto Maple Leafs also mentioned as a possible destination.
At this point, the speculation is focused squarely on Florida, and the Panthers have an interesting dilemma of their own. As well as Scott Clemmensen and Jose Theodore played in 2011-12, Luongo would be a clear upgrade over either, but the question is, "for how long?" The Panthers have the NHL's best goaltending prospect in Jacob Markstrom, a second-round pick from the 2008 draft, and if they were to trade for Luongo, they could find themselves in a situation similar to the Canucks' current predicament before too long. Given that the Canucks have designs on Panthers forward prospect Nick Bjugstad of the University of Minnesota, the price for two or three years of Luongo may be too high.
And, while Luongo has become a surplus asset in Vancouver - and far too expensive for a backup goaltender - general manager Mike Gillis has repeated that he's comfortable going into the season with the Schneider-Luongo tandem. It's not his first choice, but it's something he'd prefer to do if the other option is getting less-than-fair value for Luongo.
So, in the end, Luongo's "old" team is slow to accept too little, while the most likely potential new team is slow to give up too much. Is it really a surprise that he's still where he is?
