Opinion | Hall of Famer Roberto Luongo could have changed the course of Maple Leafs history. It was that close

It’s one of the great hypotheticals of Leafland’s past decade: What if Roberto Luongo had arrived in Toronto at the 2013 trade deadline as the franchise’s long-awaited saviour in goal?

As Luongo was recalling at the Hockey Hall of Fame, where he’ll be inducted as an honoured member on Monday night, the deal that would have shipped him from Vancouver to Toronto in exchange for Ben Scrivens and draft picks was nearly coaxed across the goal-line by then Leafs general manager Dave Nonis.

“(The deal) was there,” Luongo remembered. “I was in the (Vancouver) office ready to sign the waiver to waive the no-trade clause.”

If Luongo had become a Maple Leaf, there’s no telling how history might have been altered.

Nonis certainly saw goaltending as a weakness of that 2012-13 team that snuck into the playoffs, and found itself leading 4-1 midway through the third period of what became an infamous Game 7 collapse in Boston. Had it been Luongo, then 34, in the visiting crease and not the 25-year-old James Reimer, it’s easy enough to envision the Leafs winning the series.

And who knows what that victory might have meant. Maybe it would have given the Nonis-led management group more currency in the eyes of newly installed CEO Tim Leiweke. Maybe Leiweke wouldn’t have been so quick to hire Brendan Shanahan as team president the following spring.

Not to hang it all on the magnanimous Reimer, who had never played in a post-season game before that series and has only played in four more since. And it’s worth remembering Luongo was hardly a flawless post-season performer. The 2011 Stanley Cup final, in which he put up an underwhelming .891 save percentage in a seven-game loss to the Bruins, was far from his finest moment. But Luongo was unquestionably one of the great netminders of his era.

He was Canada’s starting goaltender en route to 2010 Olympic gold in Vancouver, and a member of the gold-medal-winning team in Sochi in 2014. Luongo’s 34 playoff wins between 2007 and 2019 are nearly three times as many as Toronto managed over that span. And all these years later, with Toronto’s situation in the crease a perpetual question mark, the Leafs are still searching for a No. 1 to help deliver the playoff success that’s been embarrassingly long-awaited.

The spring of 2013 wasn’t the first time the Leafs had a chance at Luongo. When the franchise repatriated Wendel Clark from the New York Islanders in 1996, they forked over the 1997 first-round pick the Islanders would use to select Luongo fourth overall.

As for the foiled trade-deadline deal, it came down to money and haggling over which franchise would absorb which portion of Luongo’s $5.33-million (U.S.) cap hit on the Canucks’ books.

“My contract sucks” was Luongo’s infamous summation of the deal that never got done.

Speaking Friday afternoon at the Yonge Street hockey shrine, Luongo said he was more than prepared to be a Leaf.

“I was ready for it,” he said. “Obviously I was already playing in a Canadian market, so I kind of knew what to expect and how it goes. And at that point in my career, I think I was more mature than I was in the earlier part, and I think I could have handled it.”

A quick look at Luongo’s resumé suggests as much.

Though he never won a Stanley Cup or a major individual award, he was a three-time Vezina Trophy finalist, not to mention a finalist for the Hart Trophy in 2007. He finished his career in 2019 having joined childhood idol Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur as the only goaltenders to play 1,000 games. Of the three, Luongo’s career save percentage of .919 ranks highest.

Beyond the rink, of course, Luongo’s wry wit ranks second to none in the sport, which should make Monday’s induction speech must-watch TV. Perhaps as a preview, Luongo held court with reporters and offered memorable observations on a handful of topics.

Luongo — who’ll be inducted along with former Vancouver teammates Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Daniel Alfredsson, the late Herb Carnegie and Finnish women’s great Riikka Sallinen — also spent some of Friday sharing his hard-won wisdom on an aspect of professional life with which plenty of players struggle, particularly in Toronto.

“There’s always going to be some criticism, and it took a long time for me to learn that,” he said. “You’re not going to have 100 per cent of the people on your side, ever. Now that I’ve learned that, it’s a lot easier to go about my days and not let things bother me as much, and be able to enjoy things that are happening to me.”

It’s a point of view that would have served him well in the centre of the hockey universe. Speaking of great hypotheticals, all these years later, how does Luongo suppose his time as a Maple Leaf might have gone?

“I don’t know. I hope good. I hope I would still be here today if I would have become a Leaf,” Luongo said. “But those are the questions we’ll never have the answers to.”

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