Stars acquire goalie Antti Niemi’s rights in trade with Sharks

The Dallas Stars used the second day of the NHL Draft to get one step closer to solving their goaltending situation.

Dallas picked up the rights to unrestricted free agent goalie Antti Niemi from San Jose in exchange for a seventh-round pick Saturday.

General manager Jim Nill will have until Tuesday to work out a deal before Niemi becomes a free agent.

“I’m pretty confident we’ll get him signed,” Nill said. “Over the weekend, I talked to his agent and we had some discussions, and I think we’re pretty close already. I think we’ll get him signed in the next couple of days.”

Nill has used this strategy before. Prior to the 2013-14 season, Nill traded for the rights to Sergei Gonchar and successfully signed the veteran defenseman.

Niemi, 31, had a 31-23-7 record last season with a .914 save percentage and a 2.59 goals-against average.

In his five years with the Sharks, he collected 163 wins, which tied the Montreal Canadiens’ Carey Price for the second most in the NHL during that span.

Stars goaltender starter Kari Lehtonen played with Niemi on the Finnish Olympic team in Sochi in 2014, and earned a bronze medal.

“To be a successful team, everyone has to work together. I think it’s going to be a good fit for us,” Nill said. “They know each other. I think it’s going to probably push them both. The competition is going to be good.”

Niemi also has playoff experience, with 16 wins in the 2010 postseason to help the Chicago Blackhawks hoist the Stanley Cup.

The idea, Nill said, is to utilize both goaltenders in a rotation rather than traditional starter/backup roles.

That will come in handy with 12 sets of back-to-back games in the upcoming regular season, and with 17 of the 24 games on the road

“I think it’s kind of the way the future of goaltending is going to go,” Nill said. “I think we just kind of solidified that by picking up Niemi.”

With the 193rd pick overall acquired by San Jose in the trade, the Sharks selected goalie John Kupsky.

Beyond the Niemi acquisition, Dallas selected four players Saturday, most notably left wing Roope Hintz in the second round (49th overall).

The 6-foot-3, 191-pound Finnish skater had 17 points (five goals) in 42 games for Liiga’s Ilves.

“He’s a big, powerful skater,” Nill said. “Plays a real hard game. He’s on pucks. He tracks down pucks. He’s a strong forechecker and plays a hard, hard game.”

Dallas took defensemen Chris Martenet and Joseph Cecconi in the fourth and fifth rounds and closed out their day with goalie Markus Ruusu in the sixth round.

Friday, Dallas selected Russian right wing Denis Gurianov in the first round, 12th overall.

“The top two guys are pretty high-end skill,” Nill said. “They are probably closer to being fully developed. Probably going to be ready in two or three years. The rest of the guys are probably four, five, six years away. They’re going to go to their colleges and back to their junior teams and continue their development.”

This story was originally published June 27, 2015 at 9:18 PM with the headline "Stars acquire goalie Antti Niemi’s rights in trade with Sharks."