Antti Niemi Could Be Final Piece For Sharks’ Stanley Cup Run

September 2nd, 2010 by Sean Hartnett Leave a reply »
The San Jose Sharks have inked Stanley Cup winning goaltender Antti Niemi to a one year deal worth $2 million.  Niemi's tremendous play in net helped the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Philadelphia Flyers in last season's finals and end Chicago's 49-year Stanley Cup drought.

With Evgeni Nabokov parting ways with San Jose and opting to join the KHL's SKA St. Petersburg, the Sharks had to fill the huge void between the pipes.  Antero Niittymäki was signed on the first day of free agency but he has never matched his solid international play during his mediocre NHL career. 

Most NHL experts consider Niitymäki a "middle of the road" goalie but Niemi has huge upside and is coming off a playoffs in which he displayed many heroic performances in net.  He became the first Blackhawks goalie since Ed Belfour to record a playoff shutout and repeated the feat set by legendary net-minder Tony Esposito in 1974 by achieving two shutouts in one series against Nashville.

Those shutouts propelled the Blackhawks into the semifinals meeting with the Vancouver Canucks.  In a high-scoring series, Niemi out-dueled Roberto Luongo as C ...

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