Watching
Antti Niemi play against Tampa Bay the other night was painful to watch. He
gave up six goals. Giving up that many goals is not going to cut it for the
Sharks. If they are going to win the Stanley Cup this season, they will need
Niemi to be at the top of his game and stealing wins for the Sharks. When I say “stealing wins” I mean games where
the goalie plays beyond what is expected of him and leads his team to victory.
I mean games where the goalie bails out his team when they are not playing well
and not scoring a lot of goals. I mean
games where the goalie is the main reason the team won a particular game. For a
goalie to steal a win, sometimes he needs to shutout the opponent and not let
them score one goal. If not, he should not give up more than two goals.
While Niemi does not have many bad
games like he did against Tampa Bay this season, it was a reminder of how
unreliable Niemi is when it comes to stealing victories for the Sharks. Sure,
he will win a lot of games and will play good hockey but he does not usually
shut down an opponent. He does not bail out his team in games. Usually it’s the
other way around. The Sharks offense is bailing him out by scoring a lot of
goals. The Sharks offense may be able to
carry the load during the regular season but once the playoffs start, the team
can’t rely on scoring to lead this team to the Stanley Cup. Scoring goals is tougher to come by in the
playoffs as defenses play stronger and more physical. This means that that
pretty goals are not scored as often as ugly goals.
Based on past Stanley Cup Champions, it takes a hot goalie
for a team to be champions. We saw that last year with Tim Thomas of the Boston
Bruins. He was the Con Smythe trophy winner as the most valuable player during
the playoffs. The Bruins would not have won the cup without him. The Sharks did
not win the Stanley Cup last year for a few reasons but the most obvious reason
was Niemi. He gave up an average of over three goals a game. In hockey stats,
that is lousy. Goalies in the playoffs are expected to carry a goal against
average of near two goals a game.
The Sharks were lucky to reach the conference finals with
that kind of goaltending. They managed to score a lot of goals against Los
Angeles and Detroit. However, once they played Vancouver, scoring goals got
tougher. They played a tough goalie in Robert Luongo and he stole wins for the
Canucks. You couldn’t say the same about Niemi. There were many instances when
the Sharks would grab a lead in the game only to have the lead taken away by
soft goals being given up by Niemi. I’ll never forget game five last postseason
between the Sharks and the Canucks. The sharks had a lead with less than a
minute remaining. The Sharks were facing elimination being down the best of
seven series three games to one. The
Sharks were seconds away from winning the game and regaining some momentum in
the series. All the team needed was for their goalie to make some tough saves
because playoff type goalies make tough saves to secure wins for their team.
Unfortunately, Niemi gave up a goal with just seconds left, forcing the game into
overtime. It was a momentum killer that
the Sharks would not recover from and the team would lose in overtime, ending
their season. Even in the games Niemi
won in last year’s postseason, they were not wins that he stole for the Sharks.
Many of the wins were in spite of the goalie.
Going into this season I had hopes that Niemi would rebound
from the postseason and steal some games for the Sharks. Problem is, some days
he shuts out opponents, other days he’s giving up six goals. Some days, he
plays great, other days he plays terrible.
Consistency will be the key this postseason for Niemi. He can’t perform
like he did last year or the Sharks will find themselves knocked out in the
first or second round. I want to see a
different Niemi this postseason. I want the see the guy that robbed the Sharks
of a Stanley Cup finals appearance back in 2010 when he was goaltending for the
Blackhawks. I remember he robbed the sharks of many scoring chances that series
between the two teams. He stole games
from the Sharks. I want to see that goalie again but with the Sharks instead of
against them. I want to see a goalie that can stand on his head for the Sharks
and shutout opponents a few times. I want to see a goalie that does not kill
momentum for his team but rather gives his team momentum with outstanding
saves. I want to see Niemi play like
Thomas did last year. Overall, I want to
see Niemi steal wins for the Sharks. So
far, he hasn’t convinced me he could be that goalie. I hope he proves me wrong.
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