Antti Niemi is available but Flyers aren't interested

Oh, the price you pay for winning the Stanley Cup. The Chicago Blackhawks, doing everything they can to keep themselves under the cap, made a surprising move today, signing Marty Turco and walking away from goaltender Antti Niemi, making him a free agent. The signing of Turco, who had been rumored to be someone the Flyers were considering, to a 1 year, 1.3 million dollar contract to be their starting goalie allows the Hawks to not pay Niemi, who was awarded a 2.75 million dollar contract in arbitration. Since Chicago is letting him walk, Niemi is now a free agent and can sign with any team for any price.

Now that he is a free agent, are the Flyers interested in making the man that beat them in the Stanley Cup Finals their starting goaltender? While fans may be interested in Niemi, according to Tim Panaccio of CSNPhilly, the Flyers won't be pursuing him. Citing that the Flyers have several young goalies in the pipeline, Paul Holmgren isn't interested in signing Niemi to the long-term deal that he will likely get in the open market.

The Flyers probably weren't going to get Niemi, anyway. Sure, they could have gotten creative and dumped Brian Boucher and Riley Cote and then tried to find someone to take one of their 8 defensemen off their hands and that would have freed up enough money to sign Niemi for this season, but a contract for Niemi would have to run multiple years and would hinder the Flyers ability to sign RFA's Jeff Carter and Claude Giroux after next season. On top of that, while the Flyers could have found a way to pay him around 3 million a year, there could easily be a bidding war for Niemi that drives his price way out of that range.

While it would have been nice to bring in Niemi to upgrade the Flyers goaltending situation, it appears that Holmgren is satisfied with Michael Leighton as his starting goalie next season. With the way Homer has bungled the cap over the last few seasons, Leighton and his 1.55 million dollar salary is pretty much the best the Flyers can do. Sure, the Flyers could sign a quality goalie in the 3 million dollar range and they might be that much better but it wouldn't come with a guarantee of a Stanley Cup and it could lead to a Blackhawks-esque dismantling of the team after this season.

It looks like we're stuck with our mediocre goaltending in Philadelphia. What else is new?