Niemi Chooses the Shark Tank

It appears that the tandem in San Jose was not as set as we once thought it was, as Antti Niemi, fresh-ish off of his inclusion on the unrestricted free agent list, has agreed to a 1-year deal with the San Jose Sharks, which is said to be worth $2 million.  Niemi was the goaltender of record when the Blackhawks eliminated the Sharks in the Western Conference Finals this past Spring, but will now don the teal and try to help the Sharks repay the favour in 2011.

In 2010, Niemi had the best points per game ratio on my list of players, but my ratio for goaltenders is points per 60 minutes of play, moreso than appearances.  For every 60 minutes Niemi played in net for the Blackhawks, he picked up 1.84 points (or so).  In 39 appearances for the Hawks, Niemi put together a record of 26-7-4 with 7 shutouts and 1 assist, giving him 67 points, which works out to be 1.72 points per appearance, but whatever.  I actually don't keep a count of appearances on my list, so I make do with what I have.

Niemi may have had a great points-per-game ratio, but he only made 39 appearances in the regular season, before taking over full-time in the playoffs, which only gave him a ranking of 14th among goaltenders at the end of the year.  He will be going to a Sharks team that already has Antero Niittymaki, who also signed on as a free agent, and Thomas Greiss, an up-and-coming German keeper, so the road to the number one job may not be as easy, but you have to think its Niemi's job to lose.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Joe Thornton	Dan Boyle	Antti Niemi
Patrick Marleau	Kent Huskins	Antero Niittymaki
Dany Heatley	Jason Demers
Ryane Clowe	Douglas Murray
Joe Pavelski	Marc-Eduoard Vlasic
Devin Setoguchi	Niclas Wallin
Scott Nichol
Jamal Mayers
Torrey Mitchell

Now that Niemi is in the fold, we'll demote Greiss to the minors, thus eliminating his cap hit from the total and we'll add in Niemi's $2 million cap hit and we now have a 17-man roster (nine forwards, six defense and two goalies), plus a cap overage penalty, to bring us to an annual cap hit of $55 million.  That should give the Sharks enough room to slip a few depth forwards and a depth defenseman underneath the ceiling and they should be good to go in October.  However, with only $4.4 million left, there might be some cap casualties in Logan Couture or Nick Petrecki, who might have to stay in the minors because they cost too much.

Well, I was all set to make Niittymaki a really high pick in the draft this year, but now he'll be more of a depth goalie pick, because we can all assume that the Stanley Cup winning goalie will take the lead in the net. 

Now, Niemi's numbers were stellar in Chicago, but he also had a Norris Trophy winning defender in Duncan Keith and twin tower partner in Brent Seabook, which had to be a pleasure to play behind and also had the job made a little easier.  In San Jose, the team really leaned on Evgeni Nabokov on a lot of nights and now they don't really have that menacing force that they did in Rob Blake last season, so I might not be as keen to rate Niemi as high, despite the ring.  I was prepared to say Niittymaki fits the bill well in San Jose, but I'm weary on Niemi.  I'll give him a boatload of points in my projection, but I don't think I'll go over the top.