Detroit today announced that Antero Niittymaki has been traded to the Washington Capitals.
While a few teams had expressed interest the serious bidding came down to two teams and there's been speculation that the team missed out on a better offer that came in after the deal with Washington had been finalized. GM Niece would not comment on that speculation.
GM Niece did go out of his way to say that Antero's trade had absolutely nothing to do with his performance this season. "We have every confidence that Antero will be a starting goalie in this league, his dedication is admirable playing through pain all season long and in a challenging environment. We fully expect that once fully healed Antero will outplay Martin Biron. The move was one based purely on the here and now as the team tries to challenge for it's first ever HFNHL Cup."
In Detroit the team never says goodbye to players in only says farewell for now as is evidenced by the returning players. Coming back to Detroit are Olaf Kolzig, who was the starting goalie for the Wings during the 03/04 and part of the 04/05 seasons, Curtis MCIlhenney who was originally drafted by the Wings and 'temporarily' traded to the Caps in the Kimmo Timmonen deal and an upgrade in 3rd round picks.
Washington has recently become a favorite trading partner of the Wings. In the previous 4 years the two teams had only finalized two deals but this deal is already the third of the season between them.
With Henrik Lundqvist playing his rookie HFNHL season he has encountered a few fatigue issues and so Kolzig will be looked upon to share the burden and give the team a solid 1-2 punch in net.
"This is a move the team needed to make." said GM Niece. "Teams rarely dress their backups when they face us, in fact we are honoured that we earn such respect from our opponents that teams more often than not shuffle their lineups for games against us and so we need to have the best possible team on the ice each and every night."
The Wings remain committed to improving the team anyway possible as they continue to chase a cinderella team in the Anaheim Ducks and, more importantly, division rivals the St. Louis Blues. As it stands now, despite a .644 win% and due to divisional seeding, the Wings would start the playoffs in the 4th spot.