One of hockey's greatest netminders has decided to hang up his skates.

Florida Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo announced his retirement via social media Wednesday after 19 NHL seasons.

"This is one of the toughest decisions I've faced in my life and it took me a long time to make it," Luongo wrote in an open letter to the fans on the Panthers' website. "After thinking about it a lot over the past two months and listening to my body, I made up my mind. It just feels like the right time for me to step away from the game."

The 40-year-old finishes his career ranked second all time among goalies with 1,044 games played, third in wins with 489, and ninth in shutouts with 77.

Luongo still had three years remaining on the 12-year, $64-million contract he signed with the Vancouver Canucks ahead of the 2010-11 season. The Canucks will get hit with a cap recapture penalty of slightly more than $3 million in each of the next three seasons, and the Panthers' recapture penalty will be slightly more than $1 million over the same period of time, according to CapFriendly.

The penalty leaves the Canucks with a projected cap hit of $66 million and a projected $15.5 million in cap space. The Panthers now have a projected cap hit of $57.6 million and $23.9 million in projected cap space.

The penalty, part of the latest CBA, was designed to punish teams that signed cap-circumventing contracts.

Luongo was selected by the New York Islanders with the fourth overall pick of the 1997 NHL Draft and spent one season on Long Island, eight with the Canucks, and 11 with the Panthers.

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