Was Schneider so good that Luongo had to become an obvious 2nd stringer? Wouldn't they have had more trade leverage if things had been kept a little less in-house? Vignault's commitment to playing Schneider ahead of Luongo on a rather permanent basis (a guy who for his first 5 years wasn't worth squat in goal) and letting everyone know Lu wasn't in their long range plans, helped create the gong show. My point was Vignault is as much to blame for everything that happened .. from Lu getting embarrassed and frustrated to the Canucks looking desperate to trade him.
Nevertheless, he was going no matter what after that. Now, in hindsight, wouldn't Nonis be looking better if had gone to Toronto? They would most likely be set for the playoffs right now. With all this stuff made so public all the GM's had to play the GM game and look like tough negotiators, rather than cut a realistic deal.
yeah, guess one could also blame vineault, but coaches have tunnel vision,
they only want to win, don't think of anything else, and will put the players on the ice that
they believe will win, and don't think of anything else, just like
torterella did in the heritage game, he was so scared of losing, that he
could't think, and he shot himself in the foot, made a big mistake, lack
did not play well, was like a deer in the headlights, and luongo was
devastated.
the difference between vineault and torterella is that luongo was not
playing well at all, and hadn't been for sometime in vineault's case, but
with torterella, luongo had been playing fine, and torterella was stuck
on lack, couldn't let go of him, that came back to smack him in the face.
definitely, both gms must were holding off, staying stubborn with their own offers, and both
walked away, not able to think logically, but made sure they weren't the one who caved, (but also weren't able to create something to
actually happen),then blamed the other. gillis and nonis should have been smacked side of the head for dumb stubborness.
now that a year went by, gillis made a deal that nonis would have drooled over.
anyway, luongo is happy, he even tweeted last night, saying that he was glad to help canucks stay alive,
still on the payroll. lol
can't look back, must look ahead, and i am interested to watch and see how
this all plays out, as far as players go, i see lots of upside, that will
work itself out, but much depends on who is the g.m. and who is the coach,
so that is the next important thing.