Did the Hawks Look at Niemi and See Larry Sherry?

Stan Bowman likes baseball, but at 37, the Blackhawks’ general manager is way too young to remember Larry Sherry. Chicagoans of a certain vintage certainly remember him.

Sherry was 24 when he was called up to the Dodgers in 1959 and assigned the emerging role of relief specialist. He went 7-2 with a 2.19 ERA and three saves in 23 games, then won two games and saved two others in the Dodgers’ six-game victory over the White Sox in the 1959 World Series, allowing just one run in 12 2/3 innings. Sherry won a sports car from Sport Magazine as World Series MVP and enjoyed a brief turn as L.A.’s first baseball celebrity.

But it wasn’t a precursor to anything special. Sherry was good but not great for the remainder of his career—46-42 with 79 saves and a 3.67 ERA in nine years with the Dodgers, Detroit and Houston.

Maybe Stan Bowman and his Blackhawks elders looked at Antti Niemi—Stanley Cup heroics and all—and saw Larry Sherry.

They certainly didn’t see Ken Dryden.

Dryden was less than a year removed from the Cornell University campus when the Montreal Canadiens called him up for the final six games of the 1970-71 season, ostensibly to get him some experience and Rogie Vachon some rest before the Stanley Cup playoffs. Dryden went 6-0 in his six starts, allowing just nine goals. Coach Al MacNeil decided to stay with the hot hand, and Dryden was up to it. He performed brilliantly as Montreal stunned the defending champion Boston Bruins in a seven-game semifinal, then secured the Cup with an artful seven-game dispatching of the Blackhawks.

Dryden, tall, rangy and freakishly impenetrable, won the Conn Smythe trophy as playoffs MVP, and it was a precursor to something special. Amid law-school studies and preparation for a career in politics, Dryden was in goal for six more Cup-winning seasons, four of them in succession. On his way to the Hall of Fame, he won five Vezina trophies as the league’s top goaltender.

Scotty Bowman, Stan’s dad and his most trusted advisor, was Montreal’s coach for five of those Cups and all five Vezina trophies. Scotty Bowman wouldn’t put Antti Niemi in Ken Dryden’s class if Niemi had pitched a dozen shutouts while standing on his head and playing “O Canada” on a kazoo during last season’s Cup run. That judgment doesn’t totally explain the Hawks’ decision to walk away from the $2.75 million salary an arbitrator deemed Niemi worthy of last week, but it’s a start.

The Hawks looked at Niemi and saw good, not great.

According to their salary-cap calculus—which they follow as dutifully as a fundamentalist preacher follows his Bible—$2.75 million implies greatness. And they weren’t willing to go there, not for Dustin Byfuglien, not for Kris Versteeg, not for Antti Niemi. They’ll take their chances with Marty Turco and Corey Crawford in goal. It’s their biggest gamble among the several they’ve taken in reshaping their Cup-winning roster.

Goaltending is the equivalent of starting pitching in baseball or reliable quarterback play in football. You don’t win without it, and nobody knows that better than hockey players. It was telling how many teammates made a point of acknowledging Niemi when the Hawks were introduced to adoring crowds at their downtown victory parade or when they brought the Cup to Wrigley Field for another lovefest—they knew he’d come up big for them.

Joel Quenneville knew it, too. The Hawks’ crafty coach has an unerring sense of his team’s psyche, and he had no qualms about turning to Niemi after Cristobal Huet got shaky on him in March. Stan Bowman himself spoke admiringly of Niemi’s unflappable nature and short memory—an occasional soft one didn’t stay with him, didn’t drag the whole team down. That can happen when the goalie is a diva.

That’s not Niemi. He seemed to make all the big stops—44 in one game against San Jose, 32 in one period against Philadelphia. The Hawks won the Cup with him. Who can say they would have done it without him? Now they’re not sure what they have at their game’s most important position.

Bowman says the Hawks made every reasonable effort to retain Niemi, but they were constrained by the hard realities of a hard salary cap and their previous mishandling of it.

Niemi and agent Bill Zito are culpable as well. Zito is professionally obligated to seek the best deal for his client, but best deal doesn’t always mean the most money. Going to arbitration introduced a take-it-or-leave-it finality to the negotiations.

Niemi is only 26, likely to sign at least two more contracts over the course of his career. Each would be worth more than $2.75 million had he continued to play well behind the NHL’s best defense. No matter where he ends up in 2010-11, there will be nights when Niemi misses Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook. He won’t be the first athlete who followed the money down the wrong path.

The Hawks knows what they’re doing—they would not have hoisted the Cup if they didn’t—and they don’t back away from tough decisions. They’re about to learn that staying on top is harder than getting there.