Adios Antti

(c) Canadian Press
Say hello to your new goaltender Hawks fans...

About a year ago at this time, the Chicago Blackhawks were heading into the 2009-10 season ready to go to war with Cristobal Huet as their starting netminder. In training camp, a young Finnish goaltender named Antti Niemi beat out Corey Crawford for the backup job. Nobody at the time saw this as some huge development because nobody really knew exactly much about this 26 year old from Finland.

Fast forward to June 9, 2010. The Chicago Blackhawks are hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup. In the course of a year, Niemi was solid during his regular season starts, Huet imploded; Niemi took over the starting job, had a very solid playoffs and despite still looking baby-faced with a playoff beard, was going to go down in Blackhawks history as the goaltender on the team that ended 49 years of misery for Hawks fans.

What a difference a year makes. Or what a difference a month makes. From the euphoria of that Stanley Cup win has come a pretty gut-wrenching offseason for Hawks fans. Due to the salary cap constraints this team faced, a lot of fan-favorites and key role players in the Stanley Cup run are now wearing different jerseys. A lot of us knew this was coming. But knowing what was going to happen hasn’t made it any easier for us. Despite the solid returns the Hawks got back in the trades, it has been tough to see half of the Stanley Cup roster gone.

Niemi was a RFA and the Hawks tried to get him signed. However, negotiations seemed to go nowhere and Niemi’s agent Bill Zito elected to take the Hawks to arbitration. Over the weekend the arbitrator awarded Niemi a 1 year $2.75M contract. The Hawks had 48 hours to decide on whether to accept the decision and keep Niemi, accept the decision and trade Niemi, or to walk away and make Niemi an unrestricted free agent.

In the end, the Hawks chose to walk away from the arbitrator’s decision thus ending the Antti Niemi era in Chicago. The reason being that if they chose to accept the decision it would mean rolling with a 20 or 21 man roster for the 2010-11 season with little cap room to account for injuries and call-ups. Either that, or you’re looking at dealing Patrick Sharp or David Bolland. Add in the fact that the Hawks would go through this same song and dance next year with Niemi when he’s a UFA and would probably want more than $2.75M and you can see why the Hawks decided what they did.

It is tough to see a goaltender who helped the Hawks win the Stanley Cup go, especially when this goaltender still has some potential to get better and has shown he can handle the pressure of the playoffs. Hawks fans have every right to be upset and if they decided to blame any of: Tallon’s overpayments putting the Hawks in this position, Campbell and his contract, the fact the Hawks get punished for Toews winning the Conn Smythe and $4.2M in bonuses carrying over to this year, Bowman Jr. not being able to sign Hjalmarsson before the San Jose offer sheet, Bill Zito being unreasonable (especially if the rumored $8M over 3 year offer was extended by the Hawks) or any other reason, each reason would have it’s merit. But such is life. It’s obvious that Antti valued every last hundred thousand dollars over staying in Chicago, and I can understand this considering the guy was driving a zamboni in Finland a few years ago for a few extra bucks. I wish him the best, and hopefully he ends up in the Eastern Conference.

The Hawks had a pretty good plan B in my opinion, and that’s Marty Turco coming in at $1.3M for one year. While I’m of the opinion that if I had one game to win tomorrow, I’m going with Niemi over Turco any day of the week, Turco is not a slouch. There has been some drop-off in Turco’s play as of late, but some of that can be attributed to playing on Dallas team that was pretty bad defensively these last few years. Turco still posted solid save % numbers last year. In addition, he will bring an added element to the Hawks’ transition game as he’s one of the best puckhandling goaltenders in the game today.

Turco accepted less money to play in Chicago to go for a championship. At 34, he wants to prove he has something left in the tank so he can get one more pay-day before he retires. To say he’s going to be motivated and have a chip on his shoulder to prove his doubters wrong would probably be an understatement. Hopefully he’s able to take advantage of this opportunity in front of him.

With this move, the Hawks give themselves $1.45M in cap room this year to finish filling out the roster. This is significant as it actually allows for competition in training camp (i.e. making sure that the Hawks have the flexibility to take the guy making $850K instead of $600K if the player making more plays better), and allows the Hawks some money to go after a veteran 3rd pairing defenceman. Also, it allows the Hawks some cushion to account for injuries and call ups during the season as opposed to having maybe $200K while rolling with a 20 man roster. Lastly, the Hawks can save some cap space for the trade deadline and make an addition or two for the playoff run.

The next entry will look at the big picture and try to project the roster for next year.