Tag Archives: Luongo

Tortorella Has To Be True To His Coaching Style….Just Saying….

Posted on by

Canucks have to out work, out play, out shoot, out hit, and out chance their opponent’s both at home and on the road. Unrealistic? Ye of little faith.

By Andrew Chernoff       September 11, 2013Just-saying

While all eyes may be on Roberto Luongo for the first few days of training camp that started today, new coach John Tortorella has to do what he does best and which helped Tampa Bay to its first Stanley Cup—be the best coach he can be and get the most out of his players, letting every player know that he is boss,

The players are paid to execute the plan and perform as professionals. Tortorella will be accountable for being outcoached and for misjudgements regarding his assessments regarding each players abilities, capabilities, to execute the plan that he has developed to make the Canucks successful in all areas; and the players will be accountable for not executing that coaching plan, and playing up to that high level of expectation.

The question I had for myself, and others I talked to about the Canucks during the summer hiatus was, is this season a retooling season for the Canucks or a rebuilding year.

The Canucks are in a tough division:

How the team comes out of training camp, and which players make up the roster after the first few games of the season, will help to determine whether it is a retooling or rebuilding year; and if the decisions made by Mr. Gillis in the off season were made wisely.

I am not confident that they have the speed, finesse, the toughness or the depth to match or better most of the teams in their division or in the league at this point of training camp.

I will hold my thoughts of how well the Canucks might size up against the teams in their division, and whether they will make the playoffs until they have played their first month.

My pessimistic side says to wait until the end of January, 2014 to see if the Canucks take a nosedive and their more often than not “seasonal slump” or whether they defy the odds and play at least .500 or better and make a strong playoff run to finish the season on a high note.

I will not wait that long. I will give it 15 games.

canucks20132014a

Canucks will play seven road game stretch on the road from October 15 to October 25 which will indicate what their mettle is and how well forged they are as a competitive team and excelling at that high level of expectation or not.

Canucks have to out work, out play, out shoot, out hit, and out chance their opponent’s both at home and on the road. Unrealistic? Ye of little faith.

Canucks’ Roberto Luongo drops longtime agent, hires high-profile J.P Barry-Pat Brisson duo

Posted on by

By Brad Ziemer, Vancouver Sun July 24, 2013

VANCOUVER — Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo has dumped his longtime agent and is now being represented by the heavyweight duo of J.P. Barry and Pat Brisson of CAA Sports.

Barry confirmed Wednesday that the change was made earlier this week. Luongo was previously represented by Gilles Lupien, who negotiated the 12-year, $64-million deal that Luongo signed with the Canucks in 2009.

There has been considerable speculation that Luongo is unhappy about the recent turn of events that saw Cory Schneider, and not him, traded away by the Canucks.

Barry would not directly comment on the reasons for the move, but said he plans to meet soon with general manager Mike Gillis and assistant general manager Laurence Gilman.

“I think I am going to have to reserve comment for a while,” Barry said. “We need to get up to speed and take some time. Obviously we are coming on to a difficult file and we need to give him proper advice and we need to take some time here, talk with Roberto, talk with Mike and Laurence. There are media reports and then there’s talking to the parties. We’ll take the time to do that over the next little while here … we’ll try and reach out to them in the next day or two.”

Barry said he’d prefer to let Luongo comment directly on the reasons for the change in representation.

“I think Roberto will probably make some comments, but in discussing it with him he felt he needed to perhaps find some different representation,” Barry said. “I’ll let him speak about that, but that is the position he took.”

Luongo has nine years remaining on his deal, which carries an annual salary cap hit of $5.3 million. So why would he need a new agent now?

“There’s a misperception about what agents do in the business,” said Barry, who also represents Daniel and Henrik Sedin. “We do more than just negotiate contracts. Our job is to guide players and their careers year to year and whether it deals with public relations or it deals with marketing or it deals with many, many other different things, obviously he is a star player and has been one of the best goaltenders in the world for a long time, so we’re here to help him out.”

Gillis travelled to Luongo’s home in south Florida early last week to meet with him.

“I have full confidence in Roberto and I have full confidence that he’ll be here and that is how we are operating,” he said after a promotional event with season-ticket holders at Rogers Arena on Tuesday night.

“It was fine, it was good,” Gillis said of the meeting. “It was fun. It was amiable. It wasn’t stressful. We talked about the team and we talked about the coaching change. We talked pretty well about everything we could possibly talk about. I told Roberto how I felt about him and how we felt about him as an organization.

“We talked about a variety of different things. All-in-all, we spent about 3½ hours together. I’m not sure how to describe it. It was just a normal conversation with a guy that I have known for a while. I didn’t leave with any sense of trepidation.”

Asked where he felt Luongo was emotionally, Gillis declined to answer: “I’m not going to talk about that,. There are some things that will remain private.”

In an email last week, Luongo said he had been asked by the team not to comment on his meeting with Gillis.

New Canucks coach John Tortorella also told reporters Tuesday night that he was confident Luongo would be back.

“I think he is a hell of a goalie and we are going to jump on his back,” Tortorella said. “You don’t go where you need to go if you don’t have goaltending. Everybody I have talked to, and I have only spoken to him once and never face to face, everybody says he is an absolute pro and a great guy. So I have tried to leave him alone, let him think this out and get his head wrapped around it. I think he’s going to be fine.

“He’s our guy, he’s our guy, we will not have any sniff at all if we don’t have him as our goalie. I have full confidence that he is going to respond and that he is going to handle it and will be fine.”