With the NHL season set to start on Saturday, goaltender Roberto Luongo remains a member of the Vancouver Canucks.
Canucks general manager Mike Gillis appeared on Team 1040 Radio in Vancouver on Friday and talked about the Toronto Maple Leafs, a team reportedly interested in Luongo and what he feels was their attempt to manipulate the market for the veteran goalie.
When asked to address the possibility that the team was looking for too much in return for Luongo, Gillis fired back.
"Fair value is different for every team that you speak to because they have different players, they have different concerns and different contractual issues that play into what they have available that you might want," said Gillis.
"The notion that we were asking for too much was floated in the Toronto media by a team that was extremely interested in acquiring Roberto and were using every means possible to try and force us to do something that we didn't think was right. That's nothing new in this business and it's not the type of pressure that I'm going to succumb too."
When asked if a potential deal with Toronto is "dead" as some have reported, Gillis noted that things can change.
"I don't care, there's a lot of stuff that's going to happen in the first two weeks of this season," Gillis remarked. "If you start giving all-star players away, you'll be at the bottom of this league in a real hurry. So we have two really good goalies, I don't know what's going to happen with other teams - players might not play well, there may be injuries that they have at that position which may change the landscape. But as it sits today, we need to get something in return that is going to help our team and we're not in the business of just helping other teams.
Despite Luongo likely being the odd-man out in the Canucks crease with the team's increasing reliance on his one-time back-up Cory Schneider, Gillis is not looking past what Luongo has achieved in his six seasons in Vancouver.
"I'm comfortable with both these guys starting the season here and I'll be comfortable if we finish the season with them," stated Gillis. "If something happens and comes our way that allows us to improve, then we're going to do it. And it's all subject to Roberto wanting to go to that city. So, it is a little bit more complicated than people like to think but we feel very comfortable with where we sit today with our goalies."
The Canucks open the season at home against the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday.
