LEAFANFORLIFE23
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2010
- 45,623
- 14,469
My choice for most overrated goalie ever. Addition by subtraction for the Stars.
The problem with that is the large amount of dead cap in a year. Lehtonen is fine as a back up and not buying him out makes it so he isn't on the books next year
They have 23m of cap space with nobody significant to re-sign. They don't need more cap space this year. Buying out Lehtonen handicaps them next year for no reason.
worst in sharks history is certainly a bit over the top but he certainly was the worst in the era of the sharks being a contending team (starting in about 2000). His style for whatever reason put up decent numbers in the regular season then completely collapsed in the playoffs. It simply did not deal with the upper tier teams well and tended to let in backbreaking goals.
The Hawks won the Cup with him because he was hot for one series (ironically vs the Sharks) and the east representative in the final also got a terrible goaltending performance.
Basically he absolutely seals off just about anything low in almost any situation, but he is extremely weak high, so if a team can get looks and time to go high, it's over.
To buy them both out only costs 1.5 million more than just Niemi. So it's a 3 million cap hit in year 2. Not a huge amount of dead space, certainly not handicapping the team.
The point is not financial, but for on-ice purposes. The goaltending sunk an entire season for a team that has some of the best forward talent in the league. Let the players know that it was unacceptable, and it was 100% dealt with. Toronto did it with Reimer and Bernier. Didn't let one of them hang around once they decided to bring in someone else. Clear out the position.
2 new goalies would do wonders for that team. Bishop and litterallyanybackupyoucanfind is better for the team than Bishop and Lehtonen.
Lot of harsh words for Niemi here, wasn't Lehtonen noticeably worse?
Leafs need a backup, not my 1st choice but I still believe he can be a decent backup
Trust this Stars fan, that would be a big mistake.
See Normally when a fan of a team says "you don't want this player" and it's a fan of a team that player played for I think there has to be a reason for that.
But I recently lived in a world where Jonas Enroth was the backup of the Leafs and Niemi can't be worse, he just he just can't
he just can't I can't envision a world where that's possible, and if it is that is depressing
We had Enroth as a backup a few years ago.
Niemi is worse.
I'd rather play with 6 skaters all game than have Niemi start another game between the pipes for Dallas.
I think Antti Niemi will be nice pickyup for a team looking for a cheap and reliable backup. More of a NHL than a Europe bound.