Uppin’ the Ante for Antti Niemi
On Saturday the Blackhawks and Antti Niemi received the arbitrator’s decision to award Niemi $2.75 million for the 2010-11 season if the Hawks resign their restricted free agent. It is widely thought that the Blackhawks pursued a salary of closer to $2 million while Niemi and his agent Bill Zito were pushing for closer to $3 million. While the salary is not the worst case scenario for the Blackhawks, it’s far from the best. For now, the Hawks have 48 hours, presumably until sometime on Monday morning, to make a decision on whether to resign Niemi or let him become an unrestricted free agent.
Rumors also began to circulate that the Hawks have come to an agreement with veteran netminder Marty Turco on a one year deal for $1.5 million in case Niemi leaves. With various sites reporting that the Hawks are either just below the cap or currently over the cap, a move to sign either one of these netminders requires moving Cristobal Huet’s ghastly contract. While I’m far less knowledgeable about the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement than the NBA’s (which is saying something since they are both rather confusing), it appears that Huet is eligible to be placed on waivers and thus, optioned to Rockford. I’d like to believe he would probably clear waivers since whichever team picked him up would have to pay the full amount of his terrible contract for the next two years (Did Jim Hendry sign this guy?). Now if Huet doesn’t raise a fuss and goes down to Rockford this is obviously a huge benefit to the Blackhawks’ salary cap woes. Yet, the salary cap woes are only one part of the equation.
While the Blackhawks fortunes rose steadily through last season, culminating in their Stanley Cup victory, the organization slumped further and further into debt. Rocky Wirtz admitted that the Blackhawks simply ran out of cash several times during last season and had to be bailed out by the other Wirtz family businesses. While a 20% increase in average ticket prices will certainly help the team’s financial bottom line, I find it hard to believe Rocky Wirtz would be too eager to pay the entire salary cap amount next year plus Huet’s $5.625 million contract in Rockford.
There is one out for the Blackhawks. If a player that is waived, clears waivers, and is sent down to the minors refuses to show up to the minor-league team, the NHL squad can treat this as insubordination and grounds for withholding the player’s salary. So don’t be surprised if John McDonough, the man who invented the Beanie Babies idea at Wrigley, concocts some soap-opera storyline where Huet refuses the indignity of being assigned to Rockford and lashes out publicly in broken English, or even better yet, a rant all in French (a refusal to speak the language of those who betrayed him). And behind the scenes the Blackhawks organization tells him they’ll pay him $2 million a year off the books to drive a truck for their liquor distributorship and take a few years off of hockey until his contract runs out.
I’d love to hear StevieY’s thoughts on this matter. That is, if he’s still alive, or if he isn’t too busy taking his talents to South Beach or East Lansing as the case may be.
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