Hot Stove Hockey

By Scott Antoszewski

I thought I was going to have a hard time finding interesting things to write with the NHL in the off-season, and my general lack of interest in baseball so far this year. Boy was I wrong.

The news is simple and complex in so many ways. The Chicago Blackhawk’s signed free agent goaltender Marty Turco to a one year, $1.3 deal. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be newsworthy but the way the Hawks got there is newsworthy. I’ll start back in June, when the Hawks won the Stanley Cup. The team was overloaded with players in the final year of their contracts, which is how they managed to get so good and stay under the salary cap. Goaltender Antti Niemi was in his first full year with the Hawks, and earned the starting job earlier in the year. Niemi was making a modest $825,000 which isn’t all that bad for a young goalie. Niemi went on to backstop the Hawks to the Cup and went looking for a substantial raise.

The Hawks had already dumped the likes of Dustin Byfuglien, Ben Eager, and Andrew Ladd to make salary room. Neimi and the Hawks went all the way to salary arbitration, and the arbitrator sided with Neimi. He was awarded a one year $2.75 contract. The Hawks had a couple of days to decide to accept the ruling or allow their rookie goaltender to become an unrestricted free agent. The Blackhawk’s made the decision to let Niemi walk, and signed Turco to the $1.3 million deal. That’s how the Hawks go from winning the Cup, to signing a goalie whose reputation is built on playoff futility. I’m sure occurrences like this are normal in the NBA and the NFL, but the salary cap is still new to the NHL, so teams are still learning to adapt to it. I’m sure there will be more instances like this one in the future, but this one sets the precedence. Neimi is rumored to land in Philadelphia or San Jose. Both cities are in dire need of goaltending.

The arbitrator in the NHL v. Kovalchuk case should rule early this week, so this may be quite a historic week in the league. Stay tuned!