Antti Niemi reportedly set to sign with San Jose for one year, $2.0MM

Perhaps others in the org weren’t impressed with Greiss, and maybe that’s the real reason we never saw Greiss play that much, why Nabby was such a nethog.
If I were them, I wouldn’t want Greiss to play that much, if they thought doing so might move his trade value down, and they weren’t planning on keeping him.

It’s not necessarily the fact that Greiss is a clear cut above Niemi, just that they would both be able to provide similar value in terms of save percentage— the difference, of course, is that Greiss costs $1.5MM less than Niemi. Signing Niemi restricts the ability of the Sharks to obtain a top three defenseman via trade, which is what the team desperately needs.

In my opinion, it’s nothing but a step sideways.

That connection makes alot of sense,and hoping boob selig lets the A’s move to San Jose,that would be a good guy to have on point.Pure speculation.

I just don’t think it would happen. Niitty already moved here, has been showing up to Captain’s Ice, etc.

Someone would have to want him. Which, at the present time, is not likely the case.

Maybe in January, but I don’t see it.

CBA prohibits sign and trade deals. Nitty is an option further in the season, but can’t do it now.

Sure, they play for the WCF and SC. But SVSE is in it for the entertainment. Keep the fans happy and coming, and the business will follow.

I mean who’d have thought that $5M in goal tending is not a lot compared to $6M?

Same here. My buddy who’s a die hard Hawks fan is also pretty upset about this.

who’s a big Hawks fan. He doesn’t think this makes the Sharks any better than they were yesterday, and I tend to agree. The hole on the blueline is looking bigger everyday.

Interesting. That would make for an excruciatingly long season though, wondering who, if anybody, we’re going to get.

Michael Leighton had a better SV% than Niemi in both the postseason and the regular season. Furthermore, Philadelphia just inked the young and upcoming Coburn to a two-year deal.

If you can make a case why the Flyers would be even remotely interested in that, I’m all ears.

Weren’t you the one arguing with everyone last week that signing Wallin hampered our ability to get a top defenseman?

I don’t think it’s unfair. Actually, I think his assessment of Niemi is spot on. He’s an average (at best) goalie who has horrific rebound control and benefitted from playing behind the best blueline in hockey who would clear all those bad rebounds out. You really can’t refute this if you watched him play.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Niemi. I love the story of a Zamboni driver gone to SC Champ.

But I can’t for the life of me understand why we need 3-4 goaltenders rather than the solid 2 we had last season.

Until a trade is made, this will remain a pretty much retarded move in most of our eyes.

Kill it with fire, or very spicy buffalo wings, you know how those old media types.

Goalies take the longest time to develop to their full potential, but that isn’t necessarily correlative to age. At 27, Niemi likely has reached his peak. And I don’t see him as the exception to the rule as the next coming of Dominik Hasek.

were having fun at battle of california also

The biggest confirmation is that DW did not deny it. Could have easily done that by now.

Class act. And it’s obviously Niemi’s side that leaked this.. DW tries to keep news tight until the deal’s official.

I still don’t know how to spell Nitty’s name.

No kidding, even Greiss is tough. I always have to think about e or i first.

I always get that “i” and “e” mixed up, and with niitty, you just have to remember: double i, double t, sushi. N-ii-tt-y-maki

No one said there are any trades involved.

I like watching the giants implode.

put us over the cap I believe.

Clowe’s high cap hit, on top of his subpar performance last year, and the league being so enamored with D men of late would make it near impossible for the Sharks to get a top 4 Dman for a fair value. Clowe himself would have to be packaged with a bunch of picks most likely.

Except the choice isn’t Niemi or Niitty, the choice has become both being on the team. In my eyes, at best, Niemi is equal to Niitty is what we can reasonably expect from them this year in net. We don’t need to be paying for two of them when we need the cap space to upgrade the defense. If we hadn’t signed Niitty, and instead signed Niemi, I don’t think it would be as big a deal overall (although I happen to think rather lowly of Niemi, so I’d still be peeved).

Clowe is probably the most likely trade candidate on the Sharks if we want to get a top pairing type defenseman. Both his contract length and his top-6 talent level would be an attractive piece for rebuilding teams to get, and his cap hit leaving the books here would facilitate fitting the D man under the Cap.

Yes, he’s a more than serviceable NHL netminder.

The hand wringing is more on the order of how this handcuffs us.

We have already signed two netminders. Because sign and trade is prohibited under the CBA, neither Niittymaaki or Niemi could be traded until later in the season. And Niemi’s signing takes up 2/3rds of our remaining cap.

Yes, the team is one Dman away from being a Cup Contender, but this acquisition appears to seriously jeopardize our ability to acquire that dman without significant sacrifice. We now MUST move a forward to get that dman, and our deep crop of forwards is what makes us a Cup Contender.

The idea of a second puckmover (a la Brian Campbell) is nice, but we would still have a deficiency in terms of mobile defensive defenseman. We NEED to acquire someone to be our Duncan Keith. We have plenty of potential Brent Seabrooks and Brian Campbells. We lack the Keiths and Hjalmaarsons that made your guys’ D the best in the business. Also, as good as our forwards are, they aren’t as defensively responsible as your team was last season, which also helped Niemi.

In short, Niemi is a bad fit for this team from a contractual and a defensive standpoint. Plus he stonewalled us. So we’re a bit tetchy!

i would have taken clowe for kaberle straight up.

dont know if burke would have though.

This. It all makes much more sense if a trade is in the works to ship off a goalie for some blueline help…either now (Greiss being on the move) or down the road (with Niitty or Niemi moving out).

I was hardly impressed by the guy. He looked a lot better than he was because the Blackhawks have a sick-nasty D-line. Plus, he seemed to be getting all the luck in the WCF. I’m fine with Blackhawks fans being pissed about this… but I’m equally as pissed (if not more so, because they’re convinced he’s actually good).

I do hope there’s a trade not involving Griess… but shipping off Nitty would be a disappointment for me (great mask, great nickname) as well. Still, maybe it’ll work out. Hell, I’m pretty much going to just watch and hope this shit works out.

Yeah… that sucks if it were an upper management decision, and a damn stupid one at that. Sucks for Greiss, but I just think the writing is on the wall for him.

Agree with 1 and 3. Stalock is in no way ready for the NHL, though…

mORE ROSTerBATIon Pleeeeeeze!

But happening on the same day? I think that’s what is so peculiar about the situation.

Of course he’s not sure. He said it was all speculation. I doubt there’s a connection, but it can definately be speculated that there is.

Sather’s failings are at free agency, not trades.

So in love with that idea, just wish it would actually work :/

dead link for me :/

But has Greiss really been able to “prove himself”? He’s received measly playing time behind Nabby. And if you watched Nabby, it was freaking scary how far out he would venture. Players just got used to him being a stud. Greiss hasn’t yet been able to prove his studlyness and quite frankly Niemi really hasn’t been too studly behind a studly blueline.

Yes. Which is why we DON’T Like this move. We DID sign Nitty. We can’t unsign him. We can’t trade him. We don’t want to waive him or buy him out. So WHY did we make this signing? It makes no sense!

Also, Kent Huskins has won a Cup. As has George Parros. Just thought I’d mention that.

He may have the skills, but nothing about his game suggests his teammates have faith in him.

What exactly suggests his teammates do not have faith in him?

I NEVER wanted Niemi.

I wouldn’t have wanted Greiss as our starter, but I did not want Niemi…

Why would Niemi sign with San Jose for as much as Chicago offered him at arbitration?

It’s simple. He thought he’ll earn more in the open market and decided to test it. Clearly he was wrong, but by the time he realized it Chicago moved on and signed Turco.

San Jose must have been the next best option.

With this signing, we dropped down below $1.5M.

This is why we did not get better. We now have 3 netminders, and 2 studs in the pipe who are a season or two from being ready, a worse blueline than last season, and peanuts in cap space to find a solution.

We didn’t get any better. We moved sideways at best.

The Sharks have around $1.6 million in cap space if they sign Niemi to a $2,000,000 deal and demote Greiss, and around $3.1 million in cap space if they don’t sign Niemi.

Now your quoting puck daddy?Very sad day in blogging.

As always, great conversation and insight you bring to the table vancitydan. Always welcome here.

Elvis covered everything I feel to perfection, so I won’t bother you with reiterating all of his very good points. I do agree that Niemi-Niittymaki might be better than Niittymaki-Greiss, but the loss of Clowe/Murray in the event of a trade nullifies that gain. In essence, a team with Clowe/Murray + top three blueliner > Niittymaki-Niemi + top three blueliner – Clowe/Murray. That’s where we’re coming from.

Who knows if DW is even able to get a deal done without including those players, but with the cap space San Jose has now, it’s no longer a question of “if” but a question of “when.” And that is unfortunate.

Moreso in Hockey than any other sport, it’s a team victory. Take a cog out of the machine does not ensure that you rase the level of play on the receiving team.

And Chicago had hella D in front of Niemi.

Greiss is 23 and cheaper.

Thank you. I was just looking at the stats, and I don’t get the Greiss love.

Maybe I just don’t understand from afar, and I am sure you guys know your team, but how is 16 GP, a 7/4 and 1 record with a 912 sv % and a 2.69 GAA better than 27/7 and 4, the same 912 sv % ( with more than twice as many games and many more minutes ) and a much better 2.25.

Plus getting 16 wins in the playoffs doesn’t hurt.

I know I am more scared of the Fin now than yesterday!

I at least try to see the world through rose colored glasses, so I’ll take this viewpoint (:

Wrecked. Literally.

But would DW sign-and-trade? From what I heard after the signing of Nitty, it was possible, but for the most part against the CBA. And DW is about as honest as it gets with the CBA, no matter how frustrating it is for everyone else.

Not neccessarily buying Eklund’s take, but I do believe there is a part 2 in this deal.

Who has D, and needs a Power forward and a strong second (G)?

I don’t think it’s that it “didn’t work”… we did the same thing 2 years ago. If we still had Nabby, he’d probably get a handful of fewer starts to be given to Greiss/Stalock, but still an excessive amount of starts.

With Nabby gone, the necessity of having a capable 2nd goalie arises. No way is Nitty/Greiss playing 60+ games this season. So adding Niemi allows some slack on whoever the hell is going to be the starter (I’m probably thinking Niemi at this point, if he does in fact sign) and this leaves us with a better 2nd goalie that Griess in Nitty.

I seriously doubt we’ll be using all 3 goalies though. It’s possible, but I’m not sure how the waiver-system would work with Niemi/Nitty if they were sent down.

When I read “you may as well have Zito playing for you”… I thought of Barry Zito. That would probably be more interesting….

I’m waiting for a YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH at some point.

Who stepped down today.

Probably see it tomorrow.