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Roberto Luongo and Rick DiPietro: Or, how to start a frenzy on an off day

With the swipe of a thumb, Bob McKenzie will give you Summer Internet Speculation Fever.

By Dominik
Milbury's legacy is everywhere.
Milbury's legacy is everywhere.
Rich Lam

This is how you know you have NHL fans literally under your thumb:

More than 220 retweets within a couple of hours.

With one brilliant and intuitive stroke, TSN's Bob McKenzie has legions of New York Islanders and Vancouver Canucks fans -- each facing a different goalie problem -- rethinking a message board-worthy dream of a palatable solution to both.

(I'm not saying McKenzie is trolling for attention. He's so established and respected he doesn't need to Damo-spin like that. Rather, I'm just remarking at how a few idle observations are enough to bake a nugget of fan fodder that will feed fans -- and populate our threads here -- for weeks.)

The connection between Albatross Buyout Candidate Rick DiPietro and Trade-Confounding Contract Roberto Luongo is not new. Fans have been crunching the numbers to see if there's a fit for as long as Luongo has been on the trade block. (Which...what, are we at a calendar year with that now?) And hell, you can't deny the poetic symmetry to bookend That Which Milbury (and Wang) Wrought and That Which Snow Might Repair.

The Canucks need a resolution and cap space. The Islanders need a goalie.

The question is whether the Isles would ever trade one problem for a much smaller but still quite sizable one. (And if so, what would they trade for it?) And whether Luongo's long sad walk in limbo is dark enough to get him to waive his NTC to return to a home that is, finally, in much better shape than when Milbury torched it.

It's all quite unlikely but fun for summer scuttlebutt. McKenzie's name adds weight to the scuttlebutt. He also adds this:

In his mind, and the mind of so many but clearly not all others.

Anyway, the winner of the Internet in all of this is none other than Luongo himself. Because you just can't beat this (click the link if the pic doesn't show for you):

Can I get a roadie to pick up that mic please?

UPDATE: Conveniently, a few hours later McKenzie appeared on TSN's "TSN Drive" radio show to discuss this -- so yes, there is some media self-promo going on here -- and basically re-iterated that this is mostly about, yes, a hockey fit would kind of make sense.

He mostly talked about the machinations fans have talked about all year, with amnesty ("compliance") buyouts and such. He also repeated that he thinks Evgeni Nabokov's asking price for a re-signing is a factor, which is frankly odd.