Luongo was offer sheeted by Detroit in 2006

[jigglysquishy]

He was an incredibly nervous goalie (which he admits himself).

He spends half the podcast talking about his nerves and related bowel issues.

 

[Hobnobs]

You have to wonder how common it is someone gets offer-sheeted but declines to sign, and thus we (the public) never hear about it. Because normally we only hear about it when the player signs on, right?

I don't think it's as common nowadays but back in pre-cap era where players where RFAs til they were 65 there's probably loads of examples.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

He spends half the podcast talking about his nerves and related bowel issues.

Haven't heard that one. Kinda a Glenn Hall thing.

Man, that's such a paradoxical thing about life to be so athletically gifted at something that requires you to kind of never care about what's going to happen next, but also while having to guess fast enough to do your job well. That's why I hated being goalie. You can't just dig deeper and find another gear and suddenly you aren't playing an A game, but a B game at least and finding your value on the team that way.

 

[Michael Farkas]

"Forgetting" to mention that Legace was 5th in Vezina voting that year is just top-notch

Legace got a top-5 Vezina finish in one of his two starting seasons in the NHL, that speaks to the plug and play nature of the situation we're talking about.

I'm not convinced that this costs Rafalski, as I fairly easily fit him in. It's obviously a different reality, but the idea that they're decimated by this seems extreme. As if every re-signing wouldn't be adjusted a bit to help make room. They had a "Lidstrom cap", they were able to keep costs down because it was a destination spot.

I mean, Hossa dismissed $50 million and a chance to play with Crosby and Malkin to take a crack at Detroit...

I mean Farkas likes to talk about Osgood losing his job. So why not talk about Luongo losing his job the season after going to the cup finals?

Because it doesn't happen every three years in his career haha

 

[JackSlater]

Joseph definitely was a choker.

It's not just the choking in 2011 finals. He did the same thing in the Chicago series the year before and the year before that. He just didn't have the mental strength. He was an incredibly nervous goalie (which he admits himself).

I mean Farkas likes to talk about Osgood losing his job. So why not talk about Luongo losing his job the season after going to the cup finals?

Like I said I liked Luongo but between 08-13 he wasn't the best playoff goalie in the world. It's also incredible sad that his best playoff performances was wasted on losing causes (07 and 16).

I don't disagree really and that is mainly the reason that Luongo is held below the very best goaltenders of his time. In the specific player comparison here though it doesn't really matter to me because the gap is large enough. Marcel Dionne was a disappointing playoff performer, but I'd still take him over a non-star forward if I need a scoring center on my otherwise loaded team.

 

[Hobnobs]

Legace got a top-5 Vezina finish in one of his two starting seasons in the NHL, that speaks to the plug and play nature of the situation we're talking about.

No it does not. You just tried to describe him as some unknown inexperienced 32-year old because it fit your narrative.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Anyone else find themselves consistently surprised when Manny Legace's age is brought up? I remember around 2001, about the time Osgood was made redundant by the Hasek trade, Legace was also in the picture as - I wouldn't so much call it a "goalie of the future" role as a "goalie we have coming up that we're probably going to have to hand the workload to temporarily" type along the lines of Aebischer, Telqvist, Primeau...

But he's 28 years old at that point and only 3 months younger than Osgood.

 

[Michael Farkas]

No it does not. You just tried to describe him as some unknown inexperienced 32-year old because it fit your narrative.

Legace had 0 seasons as a starter going into his age 32/2006 season. He played in four playoff games.

How else could that be viewed? haha

 

[GMR]

Very definitely, yes. Not that he had anything close to a Smythe worthy performance in reality, but the averaging stuff is there because the Wings were the best team.

With Luongo, that's a four 1st round pick deal.

The Wings don't do 1st round picks for a while here...

No McCollum (30th, bust), they traded 29 for 32 and 75 at the '09 draft; no Sheahan (21st, 4th liner), in 2011 they traded 24 for 35 and 48.

32 and 75 are Landon Ferraro and Nestrasil - so nothing much there. 35 and 48 are Jurco and Ouellet - not too much there either.

So, the draft picks netted basically nothing for them.

The cap would have been about 7 bills.

Osgood and Hasek were making less than $2 mil combined I think. I'm assuming it's Osgood that gets dealt again...so there's about a mil back. I don't think they net any meaningful asset out of Osgood. Maybe a decent or mid-round pick.

They acquire Bertuzzi in 06-07 and they don't really deal any salary back...so I imagine that deal is off the table. Which is no great loss for Detroit.

I don't want to over-simplify, but this seems to cost the Wings fairly little. I'm sure they'd have to maybe "downgrade" a depth d-man...like the physical, but unreliable Danny Markov.

The Wings go 16-1 in 2008 with Luongo. And depending on how they manage the finances of it all, they're a legit threat to win in '09 and '10 too probably. As much as Luongo is sort of a non-serious player at times, he's so much more talented than Osgood that it's worth the weaker mental game.

2010 they get dumped by San Jose...but they lost that series despite the performance of Nabokov in some respects. If they could have zipped up the net a bit more with Luongo over Jimmy Howard...that's a winnable series. I don't know if they can get by Chicago's firepower, but they'd at least have a shot. I also figure Howard would be dealt for scoring help at this point.

It's always a lot of what-ifs with these...but goaltending was the hole in the death star on these teams, a little bit by design...

Luongo gets a lot of "I told you so" points if this goes down...maybe so much that he and Lundqvist swap positions on our top 60 list.

16-1 would be a record even Gretzky's Oilers never accomplished in the playoffs.

That's Montreal Canadiens late 70's type of dominance. Probably not happening in 2008. I'm sure Detroit wins the Cup in fewer games in 2008 but that doesn't change much in hindsight.

Nothing changes in 2009 unless Luongo can pitch a shutout in either game 6 or 7. Osgood had a .930% in that series. The team just couldn't score when it mattered.

 

[Hobnobs]

Legace had 0 seasons as a starter going into his age 32/2006 season. He played in four playoff games.

How else could that be viewed? haha

He was the teams starter in '04, what are you talking about? He famously took Josephs job when he was grumpy and not playing well. Joseph then took the starting role from him in game 5 of the Preds series after Legace had two poor games.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

I don't disagree really and that is mainly the reason that Luongo is held below the very best goaltenders of his time. In the specific player comparison here though it doesn't really matter to me because the gap is large enough. Marcel Dionne was a disappointing playoff performer, but I'd still take him over a non-star forward if I need a scoring center on my otherwise loaded team.

As far as the term compilers go, do you have any idea how difficult it is to be that good that long in a league by virtue of playing just 10 games you’re the best .1% at something in The world.

That’s splitting hairs talk.

He was the teams starter in '04, what are you talking about? He famously took Josephs job when he was grumpy and not playing well. Joseph then took the starting role from him in game 5 of the Preds series after Legace had two poor games.

Pedantic but that just sounds like he was a starter, but not THE starter.

 

[Hobnobs]

Pedantic but that just sounds like he was a starter, but not THE starter.

And the argument that I was replying to was that he had 0 seasons as a starter. Which is a lie.

 

[Michael Farkas]

We're scrapping and clawing for 38 decisions because Hasek was hurt. Tough times...

 

[Hobnobs]

We're scrapping and clawing for 38 decisions because Hasek was hurt. Tough times...

He still beat out Joseph. Was a starter. Got the starting gig in the playoffs.

Again with a non-reply when you get caught, eh?

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I'm not convinced that this costs Rafalski, as I fairly easily fit him in.

rafalski was a hometown kid and wanted to play our the rest of his career there. i think they’d find a way to come to a deal with him.

 

[Hobnobs]

rafalski was a hometown kid and wanted to play our the rest of his career there. i think they’d find a way to come to a deal with him.

Nope. Rafalski was giving NJ a chance to offer the same money but the Devils didn't so he signed with the Red Wings. Which he talked about in an interview after he retired.

Also he signed for 6 000 000 which is more than the guy he replaced (Schneider) were getting. It's not like he gave the team a discount. But Detroit was the only team he was moving to if he wasn't staying in NJ as he said no to four or five other teams.

 

[Michael Farkas]

He still beat out Joseph. Was a starter. Got the starting gig in the playoffs.

Again with a non-reply when you get caught, eh?

Is there something specifically I did "not reply" to? I mean, do you think this is going bad for me? haha

 

[Michael Farkas]

Nope. Rafalski was giving NJ a chance to offer the same money but the Devils didn't so he signed with the Red Wings. Which he talked about in an interview after he retired.

Also he signed for 6 000 000 which is more than the guy he replaced (Schneider) were getting. It's not like he gave the team a discount. But Detroit was the only team he was moving to if he wasn't staying in NJ as he said no to four or five other teams.

Lou/NJ offered him like $4.4 million per...and then didn't even belch in the direction of matching Detroit's offer.

Again, I don't think anyone is saying it would have been a walk in the park...but this whole Mission Impossible mindset about spending $2.7 million or whatever on a goalie, it's a pretty tough sell.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

it sure feels from this article like new jersey had moved on by the time free agency began in the summer of 2007

and assuming that NJ is out by july 1 (and i don’t doubt that rafalski gave them the chance to come back in before signing anything with detroit, but the issue here isn’t whether rafalski wanted to go back it’s whether they wanted him back), his agent makes it probably clear that he prioritized detroit:

Rafalski's agent, William Zito, said five teams tried to sign​

the defenseman -- including one offering a six-year, $40 million​

contract -- but he wanted to play for his hometown team.​