Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Vancouver's back up goalie?



I need to confess I'm a Luongo fan. Vancouver fans love to just blame the goalie and run him out of town. Now Luongo has had some horrific games especially in the playoffs. For example vs Minnesota Wild, Chicago Blackhawks, and Boston Bruins. In saying that, Luongo did win the Gold Medal for Team Canada, he has been in the conversation for the Vezina a few times, he's been the starting goaltender for 2 President Trophies, and did have 2 shutouts in the Stanley Cup final. We all know how that series ended losing 2 games and only needed one to win the championship.

Now Schneider has been very good and very calm in net. We like his style. He's our guy. He's been so good we are supposedly moving a proven, experienced goaltender in Luo and taken over the job.

So far here's Luongo's stats this year as a 'backup': 3-0-2, 1.53 GAA
Vancouver's backup just won the NHL's 3rd start of the week as the 'backup'!!! So the question comes up WHY ARE WE TRADING HIM? 

The Canucks aren't okay with spending $9M in our goalies and we need some help with scoring and at C (Burrows is playing C?). But what if they kept the 1A and 1B goalies for this year then trade one in the offseason? It's only a 48 game year. 

If they trade him for what?
i) Supposedly Vancouver has a dancing partner but needs to move a player 1st to make it happen according to GM Gillis. 
ii) If this turns into another Rick Nash deal I would rather keep Luo. 
iii) Vancouver would need a top 6 forward like a RW to work with Kesler and Booth or possibly a proven C.

I guess this is rich team problems and president trophy problems. 

So who's our backup?
- Luongo has started the last 4 games and Schneider has been on the bench. So is Luo our starter now? 
- If we trade Luongo, Schneider starts and who's our back up? Eddie Lack is injured and not back until next season. So we need to have a goalie coming back in return.