Hawks anxious to hear the Niemi news Saturday
It's going to take a few more days before we find out if Stanley Cup-winning goalie Antti Niemi remains with the Blackhawks.
Niemi and the Hawks, who failed to reach an agreement on a new contract, made their cases before an arbitrator on Thursday in Toronto with the decision expected to come down Saturday.
Once the financial award is announced, the Hawks then would have 48 hours to decide whether to accept the one-year contract, walk away from it or trade Niemi.
It's believed that if the award is far greater than $3 million, the Hawks will look to move on from Niemi, unable to fit that under the salary cap.
"Depending on where it comes in, it's going to dictate what we have to do," Hawks general manager Stan Bowman said. "We're going to try to make it work, but it's hard - we're kind of playing a guessing game and I don't want to speculate because I don't know where it's going to be.
"There are numbers that we have in mind which would make it more easy to fit him in versus really difficult to fit him in. We're just going to have to wait and see."
The arbitrator can pick either the number the Hawks offered, the number Niemi wants or choose a salary between the two figures.
Bowman said the hearing was not contentious but did admit Niemi's case was unique in that as a first-year goalie he appeared in only 39 games during the regular season but did ultimately lead the Hawks to the Stanley Cup.
"The job of the arbitrator is to look at the comparables and make a decision as to what a given player should make based on the other players," Bowman said. "He is a unique situation so I suppose that could pose some difficulty for the arbitrator.
"It was not a typical arbitration because there weren't a ton of comparables. Goaltenders in general are difficult because there's a lot fewer of them than there are defensemen or forwards. In this case there weren't a lot of them that fit in to his background."
Bowman refused to address rumors he would attempt to sign veteran free-agent goalie Marty Turco should Niemi's decision not favor the Hawks.
"There's lots of goaltenders on the market that we're evaluating," Bowman said. "If we have to go down that road then I'm sure we'll be prepared. We're focusing ourselves on October and I know that we're going to have a good team ready on the ice when the season starts.
"Of course (Niemi) would be a loss, but the nature of sports is change does happen. My job is to try to find a way to make things work."
The Hawks are slightly over the NHL's $59.4 million salary cap with only 13 veterans signed, including backup goalie Cristobal Huet and his cap hit of $5.6 million.
Bowman said he would address Huet's status after the Niemi situation is resolved.