"It was wrong": Ex-Canucks GM Gillis revisits Luongo trade drama
The drama that surrounded the Vancouver Canucks during the Mike Gillis era was unmatched, even years after the conclusion of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. With Roberto Luongo set to be inducted into the Canucks’ Ring of Honour on Thursday, Gillis joined Sekeres and Price to take a trip down memory lane.
Among the many things talked about today with hosts Matt Sekeres and Blake Price was Luongo’s departure from Vancouver in 2014.
Luongo and Cory Schneider shared the net one year longer than planned, during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. The Canucks attempted to trade Luongo, anointing Schneider as their new starting goalie.
They tried but couldn’t deal Luongo, sparking the goaltender’s famous comment after the trade deadline passed in 2013: “My contract sucks.”
“His contract didn’t suck,” the former Canucks GM told Sekeres and Price. “What happened was post-lockout, changes that we clearly did not anticipate happened. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on with other GMs and the league… and they were being manipulated constantly.”
The way Luongo’s contract was structured helped the Canucks build the greatest team in franchise history, which nearly won the Stanley Cup in 2011. It didn’t suck then.
But it did suck after the introduction of the cap recapture penalty in 2013, which retroactively penalized teams with front-loaded contracts like Luongo’s. It served to sink Luongo’s trade value.
So instead of trading Luongo, Gillis opted to trade Schneider to the New Jersey Devils at the 2013 draft.
Former GM Mike Gillis takes us behind the scenes on Roberto Luongo's 12-year contract & Luongo's ultimate departure:
"His contract didn't suck…[Toronto] I think was among a few places that he didn't really want to go." #Canucks@GreatClips | https://t.co/cJDRTvYYmt
— Sekeres and Price (@sekeresandprice) December 14, 2023
“We were beginning to think about the future at that point in time. Roberto was a far more challenging player to trade,” Gillis said about the trade of Schneider. “There was this stigma about trading goalies. There wasn’t big returns on goalies, no matter how you cut it. That’s how managers felt at the time, that goalies were more interchangeable than certainly a No. 1 defenceman or a No. 1 centre-iceman.”
So the Canucks traded Schneider and used the top-10 draft pick acquired to select Bo Horvat.
“We felt that we had to go out and get either a young defenceman or a young centre-iceman to be able to start stepping into the lineup.”
Gillis on Luongo benching: “It was wrong”
Luongo entered the following season as the Canucks’ unquestioned starting goalie until new coach John Tortorella decided to bench him in favour of rookie netminder Eddie Lack for the Heritage Classic at BC Place on March 2.
It’s clear from his comments that Gillis was never in favour of the move, calling it a “debacle.”
“That should have never happened the way that happened,” Gillis said. “We were embroiled in these events that I wasn’t unaccustomed to. I was accustomed to working really closely with the coaching staff when we made decisions together that were big decisions for the team moving forward. That was one that was… extraordinarily difficult. We knew what would happen with Roberto. He’s an extremely proud guy… and we were going to treat him that way.
“It was wrong.”
That wasn’t the only Tortorella coaching decision Gillis disagreed with.
“We knew the skill level of the players that we had on that team. To me, having Daniel and Henrik blocking shots as their primary focus in a game didn’t make any sense.”
Luongo requested a trade, and two days after the Heritage Classic he was dealt to the Florida Panthers in a move that brought Jacob Markstrom to Vancouver.
In the interview, Gillis revealed that Luongo didn’t want to play for one of the teams that was attempting to acquire him.
“There was one team in particular that was chasing and chasing, and doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes, he didn’t want to play there. We were trying to assist a young man and his family that we really cared about and trying to get him to where he wanted to go. That is a monumental task in the NHL with a hard cap system.”
When pressed by Sekeres if the team was the Toronto Maple Leafs, Gillis was careful in his response.
“Well, you can ask him that question directly. I think that was among a few places that he really didn’t want to go.”
We’ll never know how different history would have been if Luongo didn’t get benched at the Heritage Classic and finished his career in Vancouver. But it seems likely that the greatest goaltender in Canucks history would be getting his jersey retired instead of going into the Ring of Honour.
Watch the full Gillis interview with Sekeres and Price below:
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