Grading the 2009 Flyers: Antero Niittymaki

by Travis Hughes on May 12, 2009 11:42 AM EDT in Philadelphia Flyers Season Grades

Grade: C

2008/09 Salary: $1.375 million - 2008/09 Cap Hit: $1.225 million

2009/10 Status: Unrestricted Free Agent

Depth Chart Ranking: #2 at Goaltender

[Broad Street Hockey Profile Page] - [Hockey Reference Profile Page]

The theme of the Flyers season was inconsistency, and if you had to pick one player as the most inconsistent on the team, it would have to be Antero Nittymaki. It's basically become his modus operandi to play brilliantly for one stretch of games and then terrible for another stretch, causing headaches all around the Delaware Valley and especially in the Flyers front office.

It's hard to get a handle on Niittymaki's true talents. He was the MVP of the Olympics in 2004 with Finland and he backstopped the Phantoms to the Calder Cup in 2005, but over his NHL career, he hasn't been able to duplicate the same kind of success. He's shown glimmers of excellence, but he hasn't been able to hold on to that level of play long enough to earn a consistent starting job.

I argued back in February that Niittymaki had earned the starting position. Martin Biron was playing absolutely atrocious hockey and Niittymaki had played great until that point. My argument was that Niitty just never had a chance to prove his worth at the NHL level, due to the presence of Biron on Robert Esche or whoever.

Perhaps Niittymaki could feel the heat, because he self-destructed after that proclamation I made. He stopped the excellent goaltending. He reverted to being the guy that can't be trusted to come up with a big save. He looked overwhelmed and out of place in the net, inconsistency haunting him again.

Biron took his job back. The Flyers went into the playoffs. And Antero Nittymaki probably played his last game in Philly in the process.

Next up in our Grading the Flyers series is rookie defenseman Luca Sbisa.

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Comments

If he leaves he’ll be a star, if he stays he’ll suck, it’s just our luck with goalies.

by philiafan14364 on May 12, 2009 12:34 PM EDT reply actions

couldn’t agree more with this post. he’s definitely a worthwhile backup if stevens ever gets it through his head that nitty is not a starter. 15-20 starts a year and i don’t mind seeing nitty back on the team next year, but i don’t trust stevens to not pee his pants in december and start rolling nitty in 3 of every 4.

by eeeeee on May 12, 2009 12:50 PM EDT reply actions

well, nitty is cheaper then Biron anyways…and we aren’t really looking for a back-up, we are looking for a starter…nitty proved he can be affective against ATL and such but just probably won’t ever be a starter. I don’t believe at least.

by PhillyPhan85 on May 12, 2009 12:58 PM EDT reply actions

How much of Nitty’s inconsistency would you contribute to his chronic injuries? Is that the cause or just a lack of poise?

by whiskeyboarder on May 12, 2009 2:13 PM EDT reply actions

Devil's Advocate...

At what point does Nitty stop being a failure (not meeting potential) and become a solid, but streaky, goalie? I agree, he’s still frustrating and this post was entirely accurate, but Philly also has a problem with not seeing what we have to instead seeing what we don’t. So… I’m just sayin at $1.375 million, I would resign him. That’s pretty cheap for a guaranteed 4 wins (against ATL), plus at least two hot streaks. I mean, minus the atrocious 06-07 team, Niitty has always had a GAA under 3.00, and a S% around .9. He’s started 23 and 29 games respectively the past two years, why can’t we give him 25 starts again?

by Geoff Detweiler on May 12, 2009 3:29 PM EDT reply actions

Good point but I’d rather pay some other goalie the league minimum and risk losing 4 games and save the million bucks. If they resign Biron I say resign Niitty. If they sign a starter who is capable of playing 90% of the games then I say let him go and pay someone league min to backup up the starter.

by Alimbocl on May 12, 2009 6:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Niitty

Okay, he’s streaky at times, but he was never given the chance to prove himself. The 06-07 season was a disastrous team in front of him, no solid blue line, little depth, but he held a respectable GAA and Save %. So in comes the saviour, I mean career back up, Marty Biron…Sorry, they should have built up the blue line, kept Niitty as the starting goalie and bring up a youngster from the Phantoms or bring in a veteran backup to help him along. What goalie isn’t streaky by the way? Look at Biron, he’d play like garbage for 3 or 4 games, so they put Niitty in for A game. If he wins, great let him have another. He loses 3-2, well I guess it’s time to put Biron back in…Geez give the guy some time to build his confidence. If you watch the team in front of him, they play with more power and speed, because they know that they have a solid goalie who can make the big stops, but he never gets his chance because Biron costs more…The 2 of them have almost identical stats, so who’s really better? I say ship out Biron, bring up Munroe or Aubin and see what happens. The team has to score goals in order to win, so why not give the guy his due and let him start a season. Teams have revolving doors nowadays and if he doesn’t live up to expectations, then send him out, but you have to give him more than a 3 game stretch to see what the man is capable of doing. Besides, Biron still needs a bus ride to go post-to-post (i.e. lack of speed – just big in goal). How many wraparounds did you see on Biron this season? He never makes an effort to get to the other post quickly and he gets burnt every time…

by rockhound30 on May 13, 2009 1:12 PM EDT reply actions

Nitty

Nitty was MVP of the 2006 Olympics, not 2004, which followed his MVP of the Calder Cup playoffs in 2005.

by bd22 on May 14, 2009 8:24 AM EDT reply actions

The point here isn’t that Nitty is decent and Biron is only decent, the point is that the Flyers need a goalie they can trust in the playoffs, and neither of those two are that (even more importantly they need to know how to beat the pittsburgh penguins, but that’s not relevant to this discussion). As much as I don’t respect Marc-Andre Fleury, you can’t deny that he was the sole reason they won the series against us (or at least two games of it). How many teams that have made the Cup Finals recently can you say only had a so-so goalie between the pipes, or a guy that was hot one series and only enh the next? Granted we’re going to see such a team come out the West this year, but it doesn’t happen often. Hell let’s just pull a Ducks and sign somebody in the offseason, tout him to be our #1, then play a random rookie in the playoffs and win the Cup.

by eeeeee on May 14, 2009 1:25 PM EDT reply actions

Carey Price in Orange and Black??

New to the blog so let me start by saying how awesome the site is. I just was on ESPN Insider who has a rumor that the Canadiens are shopping Carey Price and the Flyers appear to be dangling Danny Briere, the other half of the deal is that there will be an inclusion of either JVR or Luca Sbisa and the Flyers would then in return get the negotiating rights to Mike Komisarek. I would literally $hit a brick if they were able to pull that off as Carey Price is still going to do big things in this league and is young enough to hold the job for a lot of years to come. The one thing that could hurt this trade is if Briere denies the Flyers to trade him with his full no trade clause, in which case they’d have to put Lupul in the trade instead, either way it’s a great trade it’d be better if we didn’t have to part with Lupul.

by Weapon AxMan85 on May 18, 2009 4:46 PM EDT reply actions