All right, so I know just a few posts down I predicted that neither Niemi or Niittymaki would grab the reins on the #1 goalie spot this year until after the all-star break, and that seems to flatly contradict the headline on this post. I don't think it does, though, and hopefully I'll be able to explain why in a cogent manner. This comes up because while picking a fight on HFBoards the other day for kicks, I came across several posters who seem to think that all of Niemi, Niittymaki, and Greiss are more or less interchangeable pieces, which I think is flatly wrong and supported by the numbers.
Just to get the first and most obvious argument out of the way: Antti Niemi is not purely a product of the team that played in front of him.
Let me repeat that: Antti Niemi is NOT purely a product of the team that played in front of him.
Hear me out, after the jump.
This is not to say that the team in front of him had nothing to do with his 26-7-4 record with a 2.25 GAA and a .912 save percentage. That's an idiotic statement to make, because no goaltender's performance is divorced from that of the team in front of him - just ask Roberto Luongo or Tomas Vokoun. Rather, what I'm saying is that it's not a coincidence that he ended the season as the team's #1 goaltender and ended up with a Stanley Cup ring while Cristobal Huet watched. Okay, so Huet's save percentage last year was a fairly abysmal .895 - that much is true. But over his career he has a .913 save percentage and a 2.46 GAA, not so different from his successor to the compete-with-Price throne Jaroslav Halak, who boasts career numbers of .918 and 2.60. Point is, over time, he has shown himself to be a decent netminder, and the fact that he is well overpaid does not change that. Well, Cristobal Huet had the exact same Chicago Blackhawks team in front of him that Niemi did, but his GAA was 0.25 higher and his save percentage was .017 lower. That is not an accident. I think most would agree that Niemi was simply a better goaltender than Huet last year.
Antero Niittymaki has a career 2.98 GAA and just a .903 save percentage. For crying out loud, he lost his job to Robert Esche in 2005-06, when the Philadelphia Flyers had one of the most stacked teams in the NHL, and he ended that season 23-15-6 with a 2.97 GAA and a .895 save percentage (for comparison purposes, Huet finished last year at 26-14-4 with 2.50 and .895 sv% - quite similar). The increased scoring in the first year after the lockout might account for a bit of the inflated GAA (but certainly not all .47 of it), but it can't excuse that save percentage. Last year he put up .909 and 2.87 with a mediocre-to-bad Tampa Bay squad, which is good for him, but beating out Mike Smith for a job isn't exactly the pinnacle of NHL eliteness and that 2.87 number is still very high.
Thomas Greiss, of course, is in this conversation purely because he was a decent backup last year and everyone expected him to be the backup again this year. Greiss wasn't bad at the Olympics either, and certainly shows at least some promise. He also had a pretty good camp. I don't know how you can argue that Greiss is on the same level as Niemi, though; having never had the chance to carry an NHL team, Greiss is at an automatic disadvantage. Niemi played 39 games last year, plus 22 more in the playoffs; Greiss played 16, and 0 in the playoffs. The strength of that experience alone gives the advantage to Niemi, to say nothing of his markedly better GAA.
The bottom line is this - Niittymaki failed to backstop a stacked Flyers team in his supposed prime, ultimately losing his job to Robert freakin' Esche, who is no Patrick Roy himself. He's played 73 total playoff minutes and gave up five goals in that time, for a sterling 4.11 GAA and .828 save percentage (and we're talking in the first round in 05-06 here). Greiss has never backstopped an NHL team, and his time in the AHL was plagued with inconsistency. By stark contrast, Niemi backstopped a stacked Blackhawks team to the Stanley Cup, to the tune of a .910 sv% and a 2.63 GAA. Admittedly, those are not spectacular numbers, but his GAA places him ahead of Howard, Fleury, and Luongo, and that save % was better than Boucher, Nabokov (!), Fleury, and (yep) Luongo as well.
I am still a little worried about Niemi's consistency over the full year, but there is no question in my mind that he is in fact an upgrade on both Niittymaki and Greiss (heck, I think Huet would have been an upgrade on both of those guys too), and I find that both history and the numbers thoroughly support my case. It's unfortunate that Doug Wilson will now have a $2 million goaltender sitting on the bench each night due to the timing of the whole thing (maybe more on this some other time), but I really can't fault him for signing Niemi and improving the team in net.
Until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment