In the wake of another blow out, Antti Niemi was waived by the Pittsburgh Penguins today after only 128 minutes and 8 seconds of ice time, spread out over 3 games, ceding 16 goals against and making 63 saves on 79 shots and losing all three games. Head Coach Mike Sullivan suggested that if Niemi clears waivers, he will be sent down to Wilkes – Barre/Scranton (WBS) to work on his game and hopefully get his confidence back.
The embattled veteran Goalie was not off to a very good start as a Penguin, but truth be told, he really did have much help from his teammates or from the NHL games schedulers. Niemi got the call for the back end of back-to-back games, trying to back stop an exhausted team that, even when fresh, finds playing defense a challenge this year.
The 34 year old Finnish Goalie led the 2009-2010 Chicago Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup Championship winning 16 of 22 games and posting 2 shutouts and a 2.63 Goals -Against Average (GAA) along the way. Hopefully, Niemi can find his game again.
Replacing Niemi will be Casey DeSmith. The 25 year old, 6’0” tall, native of Rochester, New Hampshire worked his way up from the Wheeling Nailers to earn himself a contract with the Penguins’ WBS affiliate last year. He followed that up this past preseason by impressing the Penguins Coaching staff enough to ink a contract with the big club. So far this year in WBS, DeSmith is unbeaten in 3 starts, owns a GAA under 1.00 (0.98) and has stopped 96.5% of the shots he has faced. Last year, he and his tag-team partner Tristan Jarry led the AHL in goaltending, earning the Harry “Hap” Holmes award for the lowest GAA.
Success at the NHL level doesn’t necessarily equate to success in the NHL and the Penguins still may look at other options to replace Niemi. In the meantime, welcome to the NHL regular season Casey DeSmith.
Hey all,
Well, it wasn’t Vegas. But another NHL team did claim Niemi…the Florida Panthers.
I wish Antti well. Too bad it didn’t work out for him here.
Rick
PS–Thinking ahead, I wonder if the Pens might approach Toronto about Calvin Pickard, the Leafs No. 3 goalie. He’s had an unsettling few months, bouncing from Colorado to Vegas to the Leafs. But he did an admirable job for a poor Avalanche team the past couple of seasons, and he’s experienced at handling backup and 1A roles. Affordable at $1 mil/year.
PSS–Our team defense couldn’t be any worse than Colorado’s, right??? (Don’t answer that …)
PSSS–While we’re talking Leafs, they’ve got a young left wing named Kerby Rychel down on the farm. Former first-round pick of Columbus, 6’1″ 213, prototype bruiser with a scoring touch. Not a great skater, so that probably mitigates against us getting him, especially since we signed a similar player in Aston-Reese. But I’d love to see us get bigger and a little harder to play against up front.
Hey Rick,
I remember last year, Colorado was making noise that Pickard was their future.
We’ll have to see. According to Cap Friendly the Pens only have $213K in Cap space. Sending De Smith back down only saves $675K, so the Pens would have to still clear a little over $100K to get him.
As I wrote a couple of days ago, that loss of Cap space from the Sheahan deal could come back to hurt us.
PSS – The Pens D is terrible, but the Pens Head Coach is something else, so if the Pens could trim some space, Pickard could workout if DeSmith or Jarry don’t.
Welcome to the NHL indeed!
Casey posted some great numbers for the Baby Pens dating back to 2015-16 (1.92 GAA), but it’s a pretty big jump from the AHL to the big time. And, as you pointed out, our Pens don’t exactly make life easy for their goalies.
I’m a little worried about DeSmith’s lack of size (6’0″ 181). There’s liable to be a lot of net showing.
We’ll see how he does.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Agreed, I worry about Smith’s size, particularly with a team that rarely puts body on body, in front of him. Simply taking away opponents sticks is not that big of a help when a smaller goalie has to try and peer around traffic that no D-man is willing to move out of his way.
Well I wasn’t happy with Nemi’s signing in the summer, so I hope Casey has a better showing… I think Antii is overated!!
Now we need a big defensive d-man, I know I know they are hard to come by!!!
I am right there with you pen’s4ever. The Pens could use a big D man. Probability would seem to indicate they will have to look in house. They have precious little wiggle room right now, even if they could find a trade partner.
I really didn’t get to see him play enough during preseason but Kevin Czuczman, who is 6’3″, 230lbs has 5 assists and is +5 in his first 6 games this season in WBS and I am still interested in seeing Pedan. Can you gives a better update on these guys?
Hi pen’s4 ever,
How was your summer? Hope all went well? All your boys in hockey now?
I am late to the party this year so I have some catching up to do.
I certainly agree we need 1 Big d man for sure, but 2 is more like it if we were all being honest. That Tampa d corps is HUGE, fast and can tie up our smaller forwards easily. 5 of their 7 guys are all 6’2 to 6’7 and those 2 Tampa rookie d men are going to be real trouble come April.
I still think the Pen’s could have handled Niemi a little better. Send him to WBS for a 2 week conditioning stint, bring up one of the kids, and see what happens.Then put him on waivers.
Remember the Ottawa fiasco where by we dumped a goalie,at the start of the season and he went on to help get to the play offs.
I hope history does not repeat itself.
One final point. When you have 170 -180 # wingers trying to for check a 6’5, 230 # young stud d man, it usually does not turn out that well. We need size on the wings as well.
Good to hear from you.
Jim
Hey Jim… yeah all three playing and again I am head coach of one and trainer for the other two!!!