Even at 39 years of age, Florida Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo is still putting up stellar numbers

As astonishingly crazy as it is, there exist people who try to explain why Florida Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo is not one of the best of all time. A lot of this stems from his lack of a Stanley Cup. After all, a Stanley Cup looks really great on your record, doesn’t it? Just take a look at someone who I consider inferior to Luongo – Martin Brodeur.

If you look at Brodeur’s awards list, it seems quite impressive. He’s a nine-time All-Star, a four-time Vezina Cup winner, a five-time William M. Jennings winner, a two-time gold medalist, and of course, a three-time Stanley Cup champion.

Luongo (very unfairly) does not have as many awards. Sure, he has his six All-Star appearances, his Jennings in 2011, two gold medals and a Mark Messier Leadership Award in 2007. But he has a very noticeable absence of a Stanley Cup.

This comes down to a deeper problem of how we judge players at the end of their careers. As great as it is to win a Stanley Cup, it’s a very artificial thing, really. As a team, it’s definitely meaningful, but it doesn’t make much sense to judge a player like this.

A single player can’t drag a team to a Stanley Cup by themselves, especially in the dead puck era. Put Wayne Gretzky in his prime on, say, the Arizona Coyotes of today. They would be a lot better, but they definitely wouldn’t win a Cup. This same logic should be applied to Roberto Luongo.

Hockey is a team sport, right? Hardcore hockey fans take so much pride in this, so it doesn’t make sense why they would judge a player for their Stanley Cup totals. This is pretty obvious, I think, but we need to accept it if we are to consider Luongo one of the best of all time. Anyways, let’s get into my thoughts on him.