Should the Leafs Trade for Luongo?

Roberto Luongo is a great goalie. The Leafs would be markedly improved by adding him to the roster. Unfortunately, his salary is a big impediment. He has 6 years at $6.714million remaining, followed by $3.382million, $1.618million, and then two more years at $1million each.

That's another $47.284million still owed to a guy who just turned 33 years old.

The average age of an NHL goalie, in the 2011-2012 season, is around 28, and by age 35, roughly 85% of goaltenders have retired. I don't have access to goals against averages, save percentages, and shut-out figures by age (c'mon NHL and NHL statisticians, pick up the pace with the creation of statistical databases that are available to the public). However, it's safe to say that Luongo, at 33 years old, is perilously close to passing his prime.

As an elite goalie with no significant injury history, it's reasonable to expect Luongo to be able to maintain his current level of play for a couple more season, and then deteriorate. How quickly he deteriorates will determine whether or not he can "earn" his contract. At his peak, his annual salary is probably deserved. A goalie is likely the most important player on almost any team, and Luongo's salary would be something like 10% of the team's total salary, which makes sense...at least to me.

Let's create a scenario in which Luongo earns his contract. These are all estimations, off the top of my head, that seem reasonable..again, to me.

2012-2013 salary cap: $67.14million (estimation based on ~5% increase and to make it exactly 10x Luongo's due salary for the next 6 seasons)
Number of points an average team can expect with the worst goalie in the league: 80
Number of points an average team can expect with an average goalie: 90
Number of points an average team can expect with the best goalie in the league: 100
Average goalie's deserved salary: $3.357million (20% of the cap)
Best goalie's deserved salary: $6.714million (10% of the cap)

If the salary cap is $67.14million next season, and grows at 5% per year, here will be the salary cap figures over the course of Luongo's $6.714million/year portion of his salary, along with the cap percentage his salary will take up::

2012-2013 -- $67.14 -- 10%
2013-2014 -- $70.49 -- 9.5%
2014-2015 -- $74.02 -- 9.1%
2015-2016 -- $77.72 -- 8.6%
2016-2017 -- $81.61 -- 8.2%
2017-2018 -- $85.69 -- 7.8%

Based on my assumptions, Luongo needs to be a Vezina candidate for a couple of seasons, an all-star for a couple more seasons, and a very good goalie for the final 2 seasons. Age-wise, he has to be a Vezina candidate at age 33 and 34, and all-star at ages 35 and 36, and a top-10-in-the-league goalie at ages 37 and 38. In order to do all of this, he'll have to play at least 60 games per season, which is no small order for an aging player at any position, let alone one that requires you to do the splits 1,000 per year.

Here is a list of recent goaltenders who have achieved those results:

Martin Brodeur
Ed Belfour
Dominik Hasek
Patrick Roy

I'm probably missing someone, because I'm doing this off the top of my head, but I feel like that list is pretty representative of how good Luongo will need to be in order to "earn" his contract. He'll need to be a sure-fire, no-doubt-about-it, first-ballot Hall of Fame goalie. And he'll need to stay healthy.

The Leafs are a bad defensive team, and they had terrible goaltending last season. They have JUST enough salary cap space to take on Luongo's contract were he a free agent, and they could probably shed a contract or two in the deal (or maybe not, but I'd like to think so). Vancouver knows (or at least they ought to) that they aren't going to get top prospects or current first-two-line players in return, given Luongo's massive contract. They're also being forced to deal from a position of weakness, and would certainly love to unload that massive contract and use it to add some offensive fire power--I don't think they'd demand much in return other than the willingness to take on Luongo's remaining guaranteed salary.

I don't pretend to fully understand the NHL's salary matching rules for trading purposes or all the intricacies of the salary cap, but I think the Leafs should actively pursue him. Luongo has a decent chance at earning the next 6 seasons of his contract. I'd say the odds of him earning it are better than the odds of him flopping completely. Would I hand out the contract today? No. However, I don't think the Leafs will have another opportunity to sign an elite goalie at all, let alone one with a potentially manageable salary.

The Leafs should take a run at Luongo, as long as they don't have to do any of the following:

1) give back an integral member of the current roster
2) give up a prospect or a high draft pick
3) make a subsequent trade of an integral member of the current roster in order to free up cap space

For me, Luongo's career thus far trails that of Brodeur and Roy and Hasek, but it is comparable to Belfour's. Luongo keeps himself in top physical condition, has a competitive spirit, and will have a lot to prove with a new team. His ego brings a lot of value to the table, by virtue of providing incentive to perform and shoot-down naysayers and doubters. Ok I don't completely believe in all that mumbo-jumbo, but I do think he has the mental make-up to work hard enough to avoid injury and detorioration due to lack of fitness.

Predicting how a goalie will perform along the aging curve is extremely difficult. However, finding an elite goalie who can potentially carry your team to the Stanley Cup finals is even harder. The Leafs (and probably a few other teams in the league) should be willing to take on Luongo's salary, and the risk that goes along with it, for the chance that he leads them to the Stanley Cup.