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Luongo is just the third NHL goalie to play 1,000 games. He’s now played 1,002 and is 27 behind Patrick Roy. If all goes according to plan this season, he’ll pass Roy and trail only Martin Brodeur, who played 1,266 games between 1991 and 2015.

That total seems out of reach — although if he can stay healthy and with the way he’s still performing at a top level, the 39-year-old Luongo could yet get there.

Still, that would take probably another five seasons.

Photo by Dave Reginek / Getty Images

“A lot of pizza and pasta,” he joked about the secret to his success in staying healthy for most of his career, though as he approaches 40 there have been more injury-related challenges.

“I’ve been blessed most of my career with (good) health,” Luongo said. But he also knows he’s not 25 anymore. There’s no chance he can play 75 games in a season again, a number he managed at age 26 in 2005-06, the final season of his first stint with the Panthers.

He was traded to the Canucks that summer.

Reflecting on those early years in Vancouver, he knows now he was too hard on himself.

“I’m having a lot more fun playing the game (now). I don’t put as much pressure on myself to perform,” he said. “I’m not as hard on myself, I brush things off a little easier … These are things that happen over the course of the season, they happen to any goalie.”

But he also figures he wouldn’t be the person he is today without having been that person he was then.

“Sometimes the hardship is what makes you the person who you are, the way you handle it, the way you overcome things. Definitely it’s a part of me, that’s the way I see it,” Luongo said.