Roberto Luongo was awakened in his Arizona hotel room by the buzzing of his phone. Odd, since it typically was set to silent when he took his pre-game nap.
The caller was former Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis, who informed the veteran goaltender that he had been dealt to the Florida Panthers a day before the 2014 NHL trade deadline.
“I didn’t expect that the trade was done,” Luongo said recently from South Florida. “It kind of took me by surprise.”
It’s been almost two years since the Canucks traded Luongo back to the Panthers, but he has not quietly faded away since moving south as some may have predicted.