No, being on a winning team, helping possibly lead this team not only to a postseason berth but a divisional title and maybe something more along the way. Why not? You have to have great goaltending in the playoffs, and even though Luongo’s never been to the postseason, to paraphrase JM “that ain’t his fault.’’ I’m betting Luongo’s pretty good in the playoffs, something we never got to see here in Florida.

Shame, really.

I like Alex Auld, Bryan Allen and Todd Bertuzzi, too. It stinks for the Panthers that Bertuzzi’s been hurt all year and couldn’t be that one guy to lift up a team on his back. We’ll probably honestly never know if Bertuzzi could have been the guy that made this trade what Mike Keenan thought it would be and everyone else in the organization hoped it would be.

While the Panthers continue to shuffle on, Roberto Luongo is thriving. He’s got a new contract, his picture on billboards around a hockey-crazed town and is king of his little corner of the universe. Not too shabby.

Luongo wouldn’t go into the Florida stuff much today, he has a game tonight. I didn’t expect to talk to him at all today since he didn’t talk on game days last year. He was loose, happy, cracking jokes. Last year he was crabby a lot of times, the contract talk and all the losing really wearing on him. For a hockey guy, he’s probably in a better place. At least in the standings, anyway.