Luongo's competitiveness, longevity earned him place in Hall of Fame

The 2022 Hockey Hall of Fame induction is Monday. This year's class includes Herb Carnegie in the Builders category, as well as former players Roberto Luongo, Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, Daniel Alfredsson and Riikka Sallinen. Here, NHL.com columnist Nicholas J. Cotsonika profiles Luongo.

Roberto Luongo
said it gives him chills each time he watches the replay.
At the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Canada went to overtime against the United States in the gold medal game. Sidney Crosby scored the Golden Goal in a 3-2 victory.
"It was probably the pinnacle of my career," Luongo said. "In the highest-pressure moment imaginable, to be able to come out and win like that, I think, is insane."
Rewind the video a few seconds though.
United States forward Joe Pavelski intercepted the puck in the right face-off circle in the Canada zone. In a split-second, he turned and fired. Had the puck gone in, he would have scored the Golden Goal, not Crosby. The United States would have upset Canada, in Canada.
Luongo was in net. Caught off guard, he got his elbow on the shot. The puck dropped in front of him as the fans yelled, "Lu!" He was about to freeze it when he heard defenseman Scott Niedermayer call for it. He slid it to Niedermayer, starting the sequence everyone remembers.
"Sometimes I wonder if I ended up freezing that puck if things would have been different," Luongo said.
It's time to appreciate Luongo's impact on hockey history. He will enter the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Monday with Daniel Alfredsson, Riikka Sallinen and two Vancouver Canucks teammates, Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin. The late Herb Carnegie will be inducted in the Builders category.
Luongo ranks second in games played (1,044) among NHL goalies to Martin Brodeur (1,266), and fourth in wins (489) behind Brodeur (691), Patrick Roy (551) and Marc-Andre Fleury (525). He's ninth in shutouts (77). Among those who have played at least 250 games, he's tied for sixth in save percentage (.919) with Andrei Vasilevskiy.
He is first in wins (252) and shutouts (38) with the Canucks, and first in wins (230) and shutouts (38) with the Florida Panthers. One other goalie has 200 wins with two teams: Roy, with the Montreal Canadiens (289) and Colorado Avalanche (262).
Competitive and self-deprecating, Luongo never was satisfied. Still isn't.
He won Olympic gold with Canada in 2010 and 2014, and he and Cory Schneider shared the Jennings Trophy in 2010-11, when the Canucks allowed the fewest goals (180) in the NHL.

But Luongo said it stings he never won the Stanley Cup or the Vezina Trophy, despite coming incredibly close to each.
The Canucks went to Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, losing to the Boston Bruins, between winning the Presidents' Trophy as the top regular-season team in the NHL twice.
Three times, Luongo was a finalist for the Vezina, which goes to the top goalie in the NHL as voted by the general managers.
In 2006-07, he was runner-up to Brodeur for the Vezina and to Crosby for the Hart Trophy, which goes to the most valuable player in the NHL as voted by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.
"It takes a lot of time and dedication and hard work, and I feel like that's what I did my whole life, to try to stay at the top of my game and try to be the best goalie in the League every year," Luongo said. "I know it didn't work out like that most of the time, but that was my goal every year: to win the Cup and be the best goalie in the League. That's what motivated me."
In the end, Luongo's combination of longevity and excellence almost is unmatched.
"To be able to play at that level for many years," Luongo said, "is what I'm most proud of."
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Luongo grew up four blocks from where Brodeur did in Saint-Leonard, a city that became part of Montreal in 2002. He played street hockey but didn't skate for the first time until he was 8, late for a kid in Canada. He couldn't even stand on the ice.
"I remember I was crying," he said. "It was a tough day."

He played forward at first, even though his hero was a goalie, Grant Fuhr. His parents wanted him to get exercise, and they thought goalies, well, didn't. At 11 or 12, he was cut from a travel team, and when the goalie on his house team got sick, his mother relented and allowed him in net.
"I got a shutout that game, and I never went back," he said.
By 15, Luongo played for Montreal-Bourassa, the same team that produced NHL goalies like Brodeur, Felix Potvin and Stephane Fiset. The legendary goalie guru Francois Allaire saw him for the first time. Though not yet his eventual 6-foot-3, 215 pounds, Luongo already was big in net.
"He was doing a lot of stuff like a young kid," said Allaire, who would go on to work with Luongo for much of his career. "But you could see his size, and his butterfly was really wide. His glove was already one of his trademarks."
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Luongo was selected by the New York Islanders with the No. 4 pick in the 1997 NHL Draft. He was the first goalie picked in top five since the Montreal Canadiens chose Michel Plasse with the No. 1 pick of the 1968 NHL Draft.
Luongo dealt with the highest expectations throughout his career, externally and internally.
"Roberto was nervous," Allaire said. "He was nervous even in preseason games. He wants to be good. He wants to show his teammates he's the No. 1 guy. He's the guy who wants to win for his team. That's something inside his personality."
After one season with the Islanders and five with the Panthers, Luongo reached his peak with the Canucks from 2006-14.
Former Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa said Luongo was probably the most competitive player on the team when he arrived.
"He was so good that, honestly, I don't think he got scored on in practice for the first two years," Bieksa said. "You couldn't score on him because he cared about every single shot."
Luongo was the Canucks captain from 2008-10. He is the only goalie to serve as a captain in the NHL since Bill Durnan did it with the Canadiens in 1947-48.
"A lot of goalies sometimes are afraid to play, but this guy, I played with him at the Olympics," said Brodeur, who lost the No. 1 job for Canada to Luongo in 2010. "He wanted to take my net away, and he did eventually. That's the reason why you're that good for that long, because you're a competitor and you want to be in there. You're not shying away from anything."
Over time, perhaps as a pressure valve, Luongo displayed more of his funny, self-deprecating side. His quick wit made him a star on Twitter. But his competitive fire kept burning.
"He could find a balance between keeping it loose and being focused, and I think that's a strength too," Daniel Sedin said. "You can't always be loose and have fun and joke around. There's a time when you need to step up and be focused, and I think he was an expert at that."
After the Canucks traded Luongo back to the Panthers, he didn't coast from 2014-19. He wanted to do what he hadn't in his first stint with them: make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Panthers made it in 2015-16, when, at 36, he finished fourth for the Vezina.
"A lot of people thought I was just coming back to retire," Luongo said. "Obviously those are people who don't know me personally, and that's not who I am."

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Luongo's legacy transcends his playing career.
Before making 33 saves in a 3-2 win against the Washington Capitals on Feb. 22, 2018, Luongo gave a speech. It was the Panthers' first home game after 17 people died in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
"It's probably one of the most important moments of not only my career, but my life," Luongo said. "I actually get a little overwhelmed just talking about it."
Luongo lives in Parkland with his wife, Gina; daughter, Gabriella, 14; and son, Gianni, 11. With his No. 1 now in the rafters, he works as a special advisor to Panthers general manager Bill Zito. His competitive fire still burns. He said he might want to be a GM himself one day, when his kids are older and he can handle the demands.
"On game days I still go through the same emotions as when I played," Luongo said. "I still feel like I have skin in the game. It's been awesome."
Zito raves about Luongo, who oversees the Panthers goaltending excellence department -- with Allaire as a consultant -- and contributes to several other areas. Zito uses words like "brilliant," "kind," and "gracious," calling him, "the character guy you want your son to grow up and be like." He said he finds himself trying harder because he doesn't want to let Luongo down.
"If you want to put him in the Hall of Fame as a hockey player, great," Zito said. "If there's a Hall of Fame for people, he's going there too."
NHL.com senior writer Dan Rosen contributed to this report