Florida Panthers Should Plan For Future Without Luongo
The Florida Panthers should learn from their history and begin planning for a future without their star goaltender.
The Florida Panthers have always had a history of impressive goaltending. Looking back on the past goaltenders such as John Vanbiesbrouck, Roberto Luongo, and Tomas Vokoun, its clear that they have had some great success in finding and keeping some of the games best in their nets at any given time. Or have they?
Historically, the problem seems to unfold the same way each and every time a goaltender retires, gets traded or gets injured. Look back at the time period between Vanbiesbroucks departure and the arrival of Roberto Luongo for his first stint in goal and you find Sean Burke. Burke had been moved from Carolina to Vancouver, then from Vancouver to Philadelphia and then to the Panthers in 1998. While Burke wasn’t a horrible goaltender, he certainly wasn’t the fit Florida hoped for and after two seasons shipped him off to Phoenix.
Mike Vernon, who is best known for his historic fight with Patrick Roy, would also take a crack at the position where he was an improvement to Burke, but would be claimed by the Minnesota Wild in the expansion draft of 2000. Luongo would arrive in 2000 and hold the starter spot until 2007 when he would be traded to Vancouver.
Florida Panthers
The same situation would unfold in the year between Roberto Luongo and Tomas Vokouns starting runs with Ed Belfour. Belfour was a phenomenal goaltender in his prime, however, those days seemed to be gone by the time he arrived in Florida. Belfour would have 27 consecutive starts in net, which is a record for the club and would improve his GAA from 3.29 in 2005-2006 to 2.79 in 2006-2007, proving that he could still play in the NHL. Belfour would leave the club that year to go to Sweden where he would continue to shine.
In 2011, Florida would have one of its worst goaltender problems after Vokoun left to go to Pittsburgh. Florida would first pick up Jose Theodore. Theodore’s play helped Florida return to the playoffs after a ten-year drought however an injury cut Theodore’s career short. 2012 saw Jacob Markstrom become the starter, who had seen his GAA increased by almost a full point from last season in that season. Florida would take action and pick up
Florida would take action and pick up Tim Thomas, who was returning from a year off from the NHL. Thomas would change his number to 34 in honor of Vanbiesbrouck, and with his impressive accolades from the Boston Bruins the Panthers seemed to have put their problems behind them. In March, Thomas would be traded to Dallas for Dan Ellis, while Florida would deal Jacob Markstrom off to Vancouver for Roberto Luongo in a trade that everyone seemed to win in the outcome. Vancouver offloaded a contract they thought would be impossible to be rid of, Luongo got his wish to return to Florida and the Panthers got a hot goaltender they needed and the revolving door of starting goaltenders stopped.
Vancouver offloaded a contract they thought would be impossible to be rid of, Luongo got his wish to return to Florida and the Panthers got a hot goaltender they needed and the revolving door of starting goaltenders stopped.
Luongo, who is now 37, still has six years remaining on his 5.333 million dollar cap hit contract, which will carry him until he is 44 years old. Luongo is still performing at a high caliber and is still as reliable as he has ever been as a starting goaltender but one has to wonder how much time Luongo can maintain the level of play that’s put him at number 7 in the all-time wins category among goaltenders.
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Florida recently signed goaltender Sam Montembeault to a three year deal. Montembeault shows plenty of promise as a potential starter who needs guidance fixing some of his minor flaws that plague most young goaltenders. With Luongos age becoming a questionable factor and the history of problems with transitioning between starting goaltenders the signing shows that Florida wants to prevent history from repeating again in the future. A young goaltender like Montembeault could learn off of the veteran Luongo and help transition Montembeault into one of the NHLs future great goaltenders.
With Luongos age becoming a questionable factor and the history of problems with transitioning between starting goaltenders the signing shows that Florida wants to prevent history from repeating again in the future. A young goaltender like Montembeault could learn off of the veteran Luongo and help transition Montembeault into one of the NHLs future great goaltenders.