Flyers Interested in Canucks Luongo?

The twittersphere was in overdrive today with wild rumors about Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo and his future with the team.

Are the Flyers the latest team interested in Roberto Luongo?

It might be the Canucks worst kept secret:  Luongo wants out of Vancouver.  Rumors have flown around blogs since the Kings won the Stanley Cup about a possible trade involving the Canucks goalie.  Florida and Chicago were the first teams rumored to be highly interested in obtaining the veteran, more recently Toronto was the rumored destination.  Now it seems the Flyers are throwing their name in the hat and trying to land the former All-Star.

Luongo, who signed a 12 year, $64M contract in 2009, is a huge contract to unload and with the new salary cap rules under the newly agreed to Collective Bargaining Agreement it will be harder for Vancouver GM Mike Gillies to trade him, especially to the Flyers.  Lets not forget that next season the salary cap drops again down to $64.3M.

According to CapGeek.com, the Flyers are sitting at a cap hit of $67.44M this season, just $2.75M below the agreed cap of $70.2M for the 2012-13 season.  In order to get Luongo to Philly, the Flyers would have to give up Ilya Bryzgalov, who signed a 9 year, $51M contract with the Flyers in 2011.  Luongo and Bryzgalov have nearly identical cap hits this season at $5.33M and $5.66M respectively.

Here's where things get interesting.  Lets assume for arguments sake that the trade happens sometime this season, Luongo is now a Flyer and Brygalov is now a Canuck.  Both teams can choose to terminate their contracts.  How?  Per the new Collective Bargaining Agreement each team is allowed two amnesty buyouts to terminate contracts at the end of this season or next season.

If the Canucks and Flyers chose to terminate Luongo and Bryzgalov's contracts, the teams could choose to renegotiate new contracts with each goalie, possibly at a more reasonable rate and for a shorter term thanks to the limits placed on contracts under the new CBA.

It still remains unclear how teams will choose to use their buyouts, whether they will choose to buy out the outrageous, front loaded, long term contracts that have plagued the league over the last few seasons or choose to use the buyouts in a different way.