Trade Rumors and Free Agent TalkTrade rumors, transactions, and free agent talk. Rumors must contain the word RUMOR in post title. Proposals must contain the word PROPOSAL in post title.
While NHL probably won't miss him at this point, it's worth mentioning that he had all but retired at the end of the season. The constant health troubles were too much. But during the summer TPS approached him and he spent few weeks with the team and finally both parties decided to give it a shot.
Hopefully he can remain relatively healthy now. He probably won't even be #1 goalie in TPS but maybe he doesn't have to quit the sport just yet.
I'm a little surprised. I understand why the Sharks didn't re-sign him with Greiss pushing hard but are all teams' backup goalies already set?
Well, he looked terrible at the AHL last year, so I doubt that that was a gamble many teams were comfortable taking.
But yeah, I would have been surprised about this 1+ years ago, as well. I always thought he'd finally put things together and for once not get himself injured right at that point. Too bad.
Niittymäki will never get "healthy" again. Before last season he had an artificial joint inserted on his hip. I never thought he would even consider a come-back after that.
I think this is mostly a mentor signing for TPS's young goalies (Engren 24yo & Järvinen 20yo).
I was sure this would be the ultimate end-game for Niittymaki (if he continued his playing career at all). He can't hack it in the NHL anymore it doesn't look, injuries have ravished him. Got a chance to meet Antero early in his time in North America, very nice/approachable guy, I wish him all the best in Finland...
Not a surprise at all here. It's too bad what happened towards the end of what seems to be the end of his NHL career. The injuries affected his health and play badly last year. He wouldn't have gotten an NHL backup job considering the market for goalies is terrible even if the injuries weren't there. Going overseas beats playing in the AHL on a two-way or AHL contract at this point. It's too bad, but it happens. He was always pretty good and I never hated him even when he was a Flyer surprisingly.
"National Hockey League record for most consecutive wins, current streak and lifetime, and most lifetime undefeated wins, against a single team, for his streak of 17-0-0 against the Atlanta Thrashers tied with Chris Osgood (whose streak is against the Tampa Bay Lightning)[14][37][38][39][40][41]"
