Comments on: DAILY RUMORS: Dismissing Blackhawks Possibly Signing & Trading Niemi Upon A Large Arbitration Reward http://hockeyindependent.com/blog/bdgallof/20239/ NHL hockey blogosphere of your favorite team rumors, trades, opinion, recaps, previews and news Sun, 20 May 2012 16:58:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: General_Sosabowski http://hockeyindependent.com/blog/bdgallof/20239/comment-page-1/#comment-11595 General_Sosabowski Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:19:28 +0000 http://hockeyindependent.com/blog/?p=20239#comment-11595 Assigning a number to a hypothetical Niemi arbitration award seems intellectually dishonest. There has never been a rookie European goaltender with less than 40 regular season games played (less than 36 started), who also won a Stanley Cup, enter arbitration after his first year. Unless you know the arbitrator personally, there is zero basis for assigning a number. Dion Phaneuf has a $6.5 million cap hit per year. Who would you rather have, Phaneuf or Campbell? Campbell's deal is a little high, but I wouldn't call it "bloated." This doesn't change the Hawks' cap woes, but it might be helpful to address them realistically. Save the hyperbole for the talking heads on Canadian television. Assigning a number to a hypothetical Niemi arbitration award seems intellectually dishonest. There has never been a rookie European goaltender with less than 40 regular season games played (less than 36 started), who also won a Stanley Cup, enter arbitration after his first year. Unless you know the arbitrator personally, there is zero basis for assigning a number.

Dion Phaneuf has a $6.5 million cap hit per year. Who would you rather have, Phaneuf or Campbell? Campbell’s deal is a little high, but I wouldn’t call it “bloated.”

This doesn’t change the Hawks’ cap woes, but it might be helpful to address them realistically. Save the hyperbole for the talking heads on Canadian television.

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