So, San Jose signed Antii Niemi. We know him as the Stanley Cup winning goaltender for the Chicago Blackhawks. He was on fire during the 2010 postseason, and that earned him a nice little arbitration award of $2.75 million. But Chicago had about $5 left in cap space, so they let him walk.
Now he finds himself on the Sharks. I mean, for God's sake Doug Wilson had to do something this off-season, and he sure as hell wasn't going to try and sign a D-man to help out his Rob Blake-less defense. I shouldn't say that - he tried to nab Niklas Hjarmalsson, but Chitown was having none of that.
So after signing Antero Niittymaki earlier in the summer and feeling fine with him being their go-to goaltender, they decided to pick up Niemi. Both Antero & Antii are good goaltenders. Both are capable of getting hot at the right times. But I personally am not 100% comfortable with these two. First of all, both of them are decent regular season goaltenders -- averaging pretty close stats:
Niittymaki: 49 GP, 2.87 GAA, .909 SV%
Niemi: 39 GP, 2.25, .912 SV%
But are they enough? I've seen people say, "The regular season doesn't matter." Except it kind of does because you need it to get you into the post-season safely. The Sharks are without a doubt going to make the play-offs. I'm not crazy. They're going to be a good team. But I have to believe that neither of these guys will be as strong of a force that Nabokov during the first 80.
The plus side: they are both cheaper than Nabby, and by no means are they going to be awful for the Sharks. And at least one guy won't be starting 70 games a season and getting nice and tired just in time for the play-offs.
As far as play-offs go, all I have to say is, just because a guy was hot during one post-season doesn't mean he will get hot again in another. It's a clean slate. And do you want either of these guys as your lead play-off goaltender if they're not hot during that stretch? I don't know. After sleeping on it, I feel a little better about it ... but not much.
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