Roberto Luongo knows a thing or two about dealing with a massive workload during the season. Over the course of his 19-year NHL career, the 39-year-old has played 70 or more games in a season four times and has played 60 or more games nine times.
However, the game is a lot different these days as we rarely see goalies start back-to-back games and barely break the 65-game mark and the six-time All-Star discussed some of those changes as a guest on OverDrive.
Jeff O’Neill: What do you think of the modern day game, are you all for it? It’s like goalies can apparently never play back-to-backs. When me and Jamie were playing, obviously with you or against you, the starting goaltender played a majority of the games.
Roberto Luongo: I think the game has changed a lot since then. I mean, unless it’s very special circumstances where it’s back-to-back home games where maybe the goalie can pull it off, but I think it’s really tough. The game has changed. It’s a lot more demanding for goalies, a lot more movement and shots and all that kind of stuff, maybe also because I’m older now I feel it more, but it takes a lot out of you to play the game.
The 1997 fourth overall pick has seen it all over the course of his career as he’s just one of three goalies to ever suit up in 1,000 or more NHL regular season games.
Luongo also owns the third-most wins in NHL history and sits ninth on the NHL’s all-time shutouts leaders list, aside from being the leader in nearly every goalie stat for both the Florida Panthers and the Vancouver Canucks.
