Boom goes the Chicago Blackhawks

Scrolling down the hockey news on Yahoo.com today prior to checking my email, I was stunned to hear that the Blackhawks walked away from the one yea, $2. 75 million  contract awarded to their Stanley Cup-winning goalie, Antti Niemi, in arbitration. What that means is he's an unrestricted free agent, and thus will not be a part of the Blackhawks any more. It's shocking more for the fact that he helped them win the Cup, and they're basically destroying their team from last season. Plus, they just signed Marty Turco to serve as their presumed number one goalie, as in all likelihood Cristobal Huet is going to be sent down to the minors; Turco is 35 and aging, but he's a veteran who can help play a large amount of games, and he's signed for way cheaper than Niemi (one year, $1.5 million). While I'm stunned, the Hawks really didn't have enough money to keep Niemi given that their current salary troubles meant that they'd have to cut a lot of ties. Though on the plus side, they resigned their defencemen, which is just as important, and they have Corey Crawford in the wings from the minors. And they have enough prospects to call up from the AHL's Rockford, so they could plug in any holes elsewhere. I'm still shocked about Niemi, but good luck to him in his future endeavors.