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Antti Niemi goes from Unknown Goalie to NHL Star

Nolan Thomas Written by Nolan Thomas, Tuesday May 25 2010
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Before the postseason, most hockey experts said that the Chicago Blackhawks biggest weakness was their goaltending. Rookie Antti Niemi was the unstable element for the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup formula.

 

Now?  Niemi, the Blackhawks goalie from Finland, is a strength of the team and one of the big reasons they are in the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since 1992.

 

The Blackhawks have never doubted Niemi, regardless of what everyone else was saying.

 

"Antti's a guy we had confidence in, internally, all year," general manager Stan Bowman said. "Maybe people didn't know him that well, so they were wondering, is this the right guy? But it doesn't surprise me at all what he's done.”

Niemi was not the starting goalie for the Blackhawks at the beginning of the season and being a rookie, he was too much of an unknown during a flurry of trade-deadline rumors.

 

According to everyone else, he was too raw and unproven to bear the weight of a championship run for the Blackhawks.

So in the first round he stymied the Predators. In the second round, he out did gold-medal-winner Roberto Luongo. Then the unknown rookie goalie sank the mighty Sharks in stopping 129 shots in four straight wins against the Sharks to send the Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Two years ago, Hawks defenseman Duncan Keith watched Niemi play in an exhibition game in Dallas and stave off "two or three" 5-on-3 power plays.

"I remember thinking, This guy is a pretty good goaltender," Keith said.  “I don't know where we found him. There's no hype about him."

At every turn during these playoffs, Niemi has turned unsuspecting heads.


"The way he prepares for games, he really cares about the game," Patrick Kane said. "Sometimes you look at his technique and mechanics and probably say they're a little bit different, but he just seems to get the job done."

Antti Niemi is no longer an unknown throughout the NHL and if he can continue stopping pucks from getting into the net and the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup, he will be considered one of the upper echelon goaltenders in the NHL.  


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