Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Luongo collects 400th win, but major milestone’s bittersweet

Roberto Luongo

Roberto Luongo

Joel Auerbach

Roberto Luongo is only the 11th goaltender in the league’s history to reach the 400-win mark and he earned that milestone in style tonight by turning aside 31 of 32 shots in a 6-1 win over Carolina.

Nevertheless, the timing of this event could have been better.

“I don’t take it for granted. I’m blessed to play this long in the NHL and something that I love, but at the same time I would’ve liked to have got it a few games earlier and maybe get a few more points in the standings,” Luongo told the Sun Sentinel.

Luongo’s point is that despite tonight’s win the Panthers are still likely to miss the playoffs. Had he earned his 400th victory on Tuesday against Boston, the Panthers would be in a better spot.

Nevertheless, this is a remarkable accomplishment for Luongo. He earned 252 of his victories with Vancouver and 141 with Florida. That split has provided him with the rare distinction of being the all-time leader for both franchises. His other seven victories came with the New York Islanders, which drafted him back in 1997, but traded him along with Olli Jokinen to Florida in 2000 in exchange for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha.

Luongo is also just one win shy of Chris Osgood and 10th place on the all-time list.

Follow @RyanDadoun