Roberto Luongo announces his retirement from NHL

After his 19th season, longtime Florida Panthers and Vancouver Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo has announced he is retiring.

The Florida Panthers and Vancouver Canucks have been waiting patiently to hear about what Roberto Luongo’s next step is. He has been tempted by retirement after injuries shortened his 2018-19 campaign. Luongo has announced his decision – he will retire.

He is one of the most entertaining personalities in recent NHL history. Luongo is also one of the best goaltenders of the salary cap era. He will retire as one of the winningest goaltenders in NHL history.

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Luongo ranks second all-time in games played among goaltenders with 1,044. Only Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils (1,266) has played in more. Patrick Roy is the only other goaltender to reach the 1,000 game plateau besides those two.

He ranks third all-time in wins with 489 wins. Luongo narrowly missed out joining Roy (551) and Brodeur (691) as the only goaltenders in the 500 win club. He is also second in losses with 391, but that can be expected for someone who has played as many games as Luongo.

While he never won a Vezina Trophy, he did have four years where he finished in the top four in voting. Luongo was consistently among the best goaltenders in the NHL. Consistency is especially rare for goaltenders, so his consistency should be applauded.

Goalies have a hard time making the Hall of Fame, but it’s hard to argue against Luongo’s eventual inclusion. He doesn’t have any major awards or Stanley Cups, which hurts his case. Curtis Joseph is a terrific example of a goalie with a similar resume tends to get – very little respect. That said, Luongo has enough wins to get into the conversation and his consistency alone ought to be enough to get him into the Hall of Fame.

Now, since he retired and didn’t go to the LTIR, his retirement affects both the Canucks and the Panthers.

Panthers

The Panthers have a cap hit of slightly over $1 million each year for the next three years. Luongo’s retirement does, however, free up a fair bit of cap space for them. It’s likely they will sign Sergei Bobrovsky to replace him. Luongo’s retirement was necessary for the Panthers to have a shot at signing Bobrovsky.

Canucks

Because the Canucks retained salary on Luongo when he was traded to the Panthers, they suffer a bit more. According to CapFriendly, their penalty for each of the next three seasons is $3,033,206 annually.

Unfortunately for Vancouver, that does carry over to the season they have to give Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson significant raises. Remember, the Canucks nearly didn’t re-sign Alex Edler because they wanted a two-year deal and not a three-year deal. But it’s not that significant of a cap hit.