Dreger: “Schneider in Play”

So… Yeah….

Read past the jump.

Let’s throw this out there right now: Roberto Luongo and the Canucks are, by all accounts, finished with each other. Mike Gillis has repeatedly said that he can’t see how Roberto Luongo will be back next season, while Roberto Luongo called the Canucks "(Schneider’s) team" in advance of the Canucks’ game four elimination contest against the Sharks this past May.

The two sides are divorced, but they’re still on a lease together and are riding out the final week.

The Luongo trade market is essentailly nonexistent in part because Mike GIllis has zero leverage. No one wants to pay the Canucks for Luongo, but it’s believed that several teams would claim his contract off of waivers. As a general rule, if you’re signed to a contract that would spur multiple waivers claims from rival clubs then you have some trade value. Probably not much, but some.

Like Dave Nonis did with Mike Gillis at the deadline, however, rival teams and general managers who might be interested in Roberto Luongo (the Oilers, Panthers, Islanders and maybe Philly) are confident they can wait out Mike GIllis and the Canucks and snag Luongo on their terms (in exchange for nothing at all, or even worse for Rick DiPietro). It’s a perception the Canucks have been fighting for, literally, more than a year. It’s a fight they can’t win because with a descending salary cap and seven or eight players still to sign this offseason, Mike GIllis can no longer wait forever here.

All of which is to say that trading Cory Schneider, a player who would theoretically net a significantly better return and is only likely to be somewhat better than Roberto Luongo over the short-term, instead of Roberto Luongo is the right move from a hockey perspective. The Cory Schneider asking price is rumoured to be a first rounder and a prospect, and that’s probably a pretty good prospect too. If Bishop can net Conacher, and Bernier can net Frattin; then Schneider should be able to get you an NHLer on an entry-level deal and a first if the market for him heats up. Essentially it’s clear that the combined value of Luongo and a Schneider return, would outpace the combined value of Schneider and a Luongo return.

Alas, this is also something that just isn’t happening. You can’t just turn around and take Roberto Luongo back after what’s transpired over the past fifteen months. Professional relationships don’t work that way.

Perhaps the Canucks have – after struggling through this process for the past twelve months – thrown up their hands in frustration, and have decided to try and work it out with their star netminder and deal their more valuable commodity instead. The thinking, maybe, is that it shouldn’t be too difficult to reconnect with Luongo when the alternative is waivers, and a one-way ticket to Edmonton.

Or more likely, the Canucks have decided that they need to at least appear to have options ahead of this weekend’s draft. As such Mike Gillis may be invoking the Madman Theory here, because I very much doubt that a Cory Schneider trade is a serious consideration or a credible possible outcome for the Canucks this weekend.