Waived: Antti Niemi (DeSmith Returned, Jarry Recalled)

[SUBdrewgANS]

Personally, I think they set him up to fail, but some of those goals he had to have.

Maybe this is a stint where he goes to get confidence?

I don't know. I kind of see it as they looked at those 2 back to back games and said

Panthers we can beat with Murray in net, but not with Niemi
Lightning are 50/50 whether or not we'll beat them with Murray in net. Niemi may have a spark in him to redeem himself after they lit him up last time.

So instead of the possibility of going 0-2 on the back to backs.. they opted for a "guaranteed" 1-1


I know the coaches probably don't think like that.. but I'm trying to make sense of it. haha

 

[Le Magnifique 66]

I don't know. I kind of see it as they looked at those 2 back to back games and said

Panthers we can beat with Murray in net, but not with Niemi
Lightning are 50/50 whether or not we'll beat them with Murray in net. Niemi may have a spark in him to redeem himself after they lit him up last time.

So instead of the possibility of going 0-2 on the back to backs.. they opted for a "guaranteed" 1-1


I know the coaches probably don't think like that.. but I'm trying to make sense of it. haha

In a way I do think they think that way also, let's try and get the 2 pts and then hope for the best in the 2nd game
there is nothing wrong with that and to be honest Murray besides the bad first goal given up against the Panthers, made some dam good saves after that. I honestly don't think we win that game with Niemi in nets. The good decision was taken

 

[molon labe]

Yeah not buying that. A backup goalie is asked to play back to backs and not **** the bed. Niemi **** the bed. Some of the goals and rebound control cannot be blamed on defense. Niemi is his own worst nightmare. I cannot believe that guy won a Cup because he is so small in the net.

That's what I was noticing. Right now our team is not only playing bad defense, our offense on back-to-backs is really struggling too. It's so early in the season and the line chemistry is not up to snuff, so if we were to play Murray on night two, you'd need him to constantly be dominant letting in 1-2 (or zero) goals for our guys to win. We put up ONE goal against Tampa with 5 power play opportunities - meaning Murray in that game would have needed to have a shutout (something nobody is doing to Tampa in October)..

Niemi's rebound control was just atrocious. Our defense sucked in front of him, but everything shot his way was kicked out or left on the doorstep.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Maybe I'm kind of missing the point, but really, they had to give Niemi some starts even against tough competition to figure out if he could really pull it together or not. As I mentioned in the Sheahan thread, it's way better to gamble on that now in the beginning of the season to see if Niemi's going to be a reliable backup should, god forbid, Murray go down in the late-season/playoffs again.

If Niemi hadn't let in those backbreaking goals, but the team defense was terrible, that's a different problem. But if Niemi had 3 straight terrible games, that's not really something you can write off as a team problem, IMO.

 

[Speaking Moistly]

Maybe I'm kind of missing the point, but really, they had to give Niemi some starts even against tough competition to figure out if he could really pull it together or not. As I mentioned in the Sheahan thread, it's way better to gamble on that now in the beginning of the season to see if Niemi's going to be a reliable backup should, god forbid, Murray go down in the late-season/playoffs again.

If Niemi hadn't let in those backbreaking goals, but the team defense was terrible, that's a different problem. But if Niemi had 3 straight terrible games, that's not really something you can write off as a team problem, IMO.

I don't think that much thought went into it.

Chicago? Murray was guaranteed to get the home opener the night before. St. Louis is currently leading the Central anyway.
Tampa? Murray got the divisional rival scoring a lot so Niemi got the other team scoring a lot. Washington has fallen back since then but at the time Ovechkin was scoring at will.
Tampa again? That was them playing it safe for a win and the Panthers played a good game.

Maybe you try and get him a game against the Panthers and take the risk or you disrupt Murray working himself into a groove to give Niemi the game against the Rangers. There was never a choice in testing him or sheltering him because of the schedule.

 

[DegenX]

Haven't seen this posted, and didn't want to start a new thread ...

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I have to wonder if Niemi is actually going to ride buses in WB/S. I realize it doesn't seem like he has much choice at this point in his career but teams and players can mutually terminate a contract, right? Didn't Montreal and Streit just do that?

 

[Speaking Moistly]

What?!

 

[HandshakeLine]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[HandshakeLine]

So, that was a pretty risk-free experiment.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

"There's no way he gets claimed. Nobody is that dumb"

Tallon: Hold my beer...

 

[Jaded-Fan]

What?!

How could they ever have thrown this away????

 

[Speaking Moistly]

Some context... still doesn't make sense or stop being funny.

ETA, the Pens cleared a contract so that's good.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Good for Niemi, I suppose.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Some context... still doesn't make sense or stop being funny.

Before I opened the link, I was expecting the Tweet to be something like "Yeah, the Panthers really needed someone to clean the shitters and make coffee. Niemi really made sense to us."

 

[Corvidae]

ahahaha whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy?!

"There's no way he gets claimed. Nobody is that dumb"

Tallon: Hold my beer...

More like "hold my paper bag concealing a 5th of Bankers Club vodka." His DD should NOT have let him use a computer.

 

[mpp9]

He knows him from Chicago. Not sure that’s relevant at this point though. Niemi isn’t very good.

 

[Empoleon8771]

That is...actually not ideal. They're gonna have to trade for another fringe NHL/AHL goalie now, just having Murray-Jarry-DeSmith isn't deep enough. Niemi himself might not be a loss, but the concept of what Niemi is is a loss.

 

[Coach Travis]

My god. There has to be a catch here, right? Like there’s a back door deal to send Florida a 5th rounder? This is f***ing hilarious!!!

 

[Clare2904]

Bye. Thank f*** that was quick.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

That is...actually not ideal. They're gonna have to trade for another fringe NHL/AHL goalie now, just having Murray-Jarry-DeSmith isn't deep enough. Niemi himself might not be a loss, but the concept of what Niemi is is a loss.

You aren't wrong but I'm not too worried about it.

And again, I have to wonder whether or not Niemi had serious plans to play out the rest of the year in WB/S. Guess we'll never find out.

 

[Rufus]

That is...actually not ideal. They're gonna have to trade for another fringe NHL/AHL goalie now, just having Murray-Jarry-DeSmith isn't deep enough. Niemi himself might not be a loss, but the concept of what Niemi is is a loss.

There’s several options like that on the market that we wouldn’t even have to trade for. It’s not ideal since Niemi is a known commodity, but these guys are a dime a dozen

 

[Speaking Moistly]

That is...actually not ideal. They're gonna have to trade for another fringe NHL/AHL goalie now, just having Murray-Jarry-DeSmith isn't deep enough. Niemi himself might not be a loss, but the concept of what Niemi is is a loss.

I'd say the concept is a loss but the reality isn't so it's not a loss. He was abysmal, 4th on the depth chart and possibly worse. Finding something better than that isn't a huge ask if they feel the need to. Just because he has NHL experience doesn't mean much when someone is that bad. They'll probably go try to find an actual NHL backup going forward unless DeSmith or Jarry gives them enough confidence and then it would be finding an AHL goalie. I'm not sure we'd fall Niemi a good AHL goalie at this point.

 

[Empoleon8771]

There’s several options like that on the market that we wouldn’t even have to trade for. It’s not ideal since Niemi is a known commodity, but these guys are a dime a dozen

We just gotta hope a guy like Condon last year gets put on waivers sometime soon, because the Penguins do need another NHL or AHL goalie. I just don't want to have to trade for one of these guys. Someone like Retro Berra catches my eye as a guy the Penguins could claim off waivers, once Ryan Miller gets healthy.

I wouldn't be against signing a free agent goalie, either.

 

[Jacob]

Man.. I know situations change quickly but it's crazy that Pickard clears and Niemi doesn't.

Our goalie depth is very bad all of a sudden.