Thaindian News

By Madhuri Dey
Aug 3, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Ice Hockey goaltender Marty Turco now belongs to the Chicago Blackhawks. The team on Monday entered into a one-year deal with the player. 34-year-old Marty Turco will be replacing 26-year-old Antti Niemi who had helped the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup last season. He earned $826,875 as a rookie. The move to replace Antti Niemi by Marty Turco has however come as a shock to the sports lovers and analyst many of whom think that the team might have managed to keep Antti Niemi in the team. Although the terms and conditions of the deal have not been mentioned clearly by the team, some media sources reported that Marty Turco will be receiving $1.3 million under the deal.

The move by the Chicago Blackhawks comes after a week of Antti Niemi being awarded a $2.75 million salary by an arbitrator for the next season. While many feel that the team might have arranged for the award under the National Hockey League’s salary cap, the General Manager of Chicago Blackhawks Stan Bowman declined to comment on the matter. However, the team did not settle for a less worthy player as Marty Turco has an impressive career record. In his NHL career, Marty Turco is 262-154-63 in 509 regular-season games. He has goals-against average of 2.31 along with 40 shutouts. Last year Marty Turco went for 22-20-11 with a 2.72 goals-against average. He also has four shutouts and 0.913 save percentage to his credit.

As for Antti Niemi, the player has become an unrestricted free agent who will have to settle down with some other team under a salary probably less than another team. The Philadelphia Flyers against whom the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup has however said that they are not interested to sign Antti Niemi.