Roberto Luongo announces his retirement

Long-time Vancouver Canuck goaltender Roberto Luongo has officially announced his retirement from professional hockey via his Twitter account.

 

Speculated for what seems like the past few years, Luongo has been nursing injuries in this latter part of his career. Before returning to Florida in 2014, the netminder spent a total of eight years in Vancouver, including multiple playoff runs and a Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2011.

Throughout his 448 appearances and 367 starts for the Canucks, Luongo was one of the league’s best goaltenders. Posting a .919 save percentage and 2.36 GAA during his time in Vancouver.

Luongo was in the top-10 of Vezina Trophy voting for five of the eight years as a Canuck and won the William M. Jennings Trophy once as part of the best goalie tandem in the league, with Cory Schneider.

His legacy will continue as one of the best on and off the ice players to be a part of the Canucks organization.

Reported by Frank Seravalli last week, the Canucks are now facing an estimate of a $3.03-million penalty on their cap for the next three years.

Puckpedia explains the full recapture penalty HERE.

This means that as of right now, before they have signed any of their restricted free agents or available unrestricted free agents, the Canucks have about $15-million in cap space heading into the 2019-20 season.

With Brock Boeser still to sign for about half of that total, Vancouver now have to be careful how they spend their cap dollars.

They were linked to Tyler Myers previously, and considered one of the frontrunners for the 6-foot-7 right-handed defenceman, but if the estimate of a $7-million cap hit on the Myers deal is correct, that seems much less likely now.

Important depth forwards like Josh Leivo and Nikolay Goldobin are still in need of new contracts that should still require a significant portion of that remaining cap space.

Because of this penalty, we might see the Canucks hold back on any free agent signings.