Hockey Analyst Adds Fuel to Luongo-to-Leafs Rumours

The lack of NHL games certainly isn’t stopping the NHL rumour mill. On Friday, Sportsnet.ca analyst John Shannon posted an opinion column where he repeated what he said Wednesday night during a discussion on the Hockeycentral TV program shown on Rogers Sportsnet: he has heard “from a reputable source” that current Vancouver Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Everybody knows Luongo is going somewhere because of the emergence of Cory Schneider, and also because the club would probably like to shed itself of the average $5.33 million they have to pay to Bobby Lu for the next 10 years. It’s likely they’ll still have to eat part of that contract to get other teams interested in his services.

No trades can occur while the teams aren’t playing, so this will have to wait at least until the two sides come to an agreement on a new deal. That deal seems to be a rather remote possibility given what happened on Thursday, so it could be awhile before we find out whether this rumour has anything to it. Shannon obviously believes it does, otherwise he wouldn’t have said anything.

If that’s the case, it doesn’t make sense that the Leafs fired goaltender coach Francois Allaire in what became an acrimonious breakup. Allaire and Luongo have worked together for years, and in 2006 Luongo made it a condition of being re-signed to a contract by the Florida Panthers that Allaire be hired as the team’s goaltending coach. Instead of doing that, then-general manager Mike Keenan traded him to the Canucks.

Now Allaire is gone from the Leafs and Rick St. Croix is the club’s new goaltending coach. Who would the Leafs give up to get Luongo? Early speculation had grown to include up-and-coming defenceman Jake Gardiner, winger Matt Frattin and a first-round pick. Now the name being bandied about is centre Tyler Bozak, who would fill a need for the Canucks on their third line.

Of course, Vancouver GM Mike Gillis has stated that the Luongo-to-Toronto scuttlebutt has no merit, but that’s what GMs are paid to do. There are some who still believe Luongo’s former club in Florida is still the front-runner to get the 33-year-old netminder, although no names have surfaced which might go to the other coast in a trade.

Toronto Star sportswriter Damien Cox also casts doubt on the “done-ness” of the deal for a practical reason: with no collective bargaining agreement in place, no one knows what the rules will be going forward. So we’ll have to wait until hands are shaken and contracts are signed to see what happens.