Can't say I fully saw this coming, but with the salary cap the way it is, it was almost inevitable that our loss would be another team's gain. This definitely gives the Sharks an inside track on us, but I still feel we are the team to beat in the West. I also don't really buy this whole giving Hjalmarsson a large offer sheet was some slight of hand by them to net Niemi. Their D is weak & Hjalmarsson immediately would've improved it, that's why he got a big offer. There's no way the Sharks FO would know that an arbitrator would reward Niemi about .5mill more than we could spend on him. And that's the only thing that I'm sore about. If the damn arbitrator just rewarded Niemi $2mill, he'd still be in a Hawks sweater, which is what I think he really wanted. Damn you arbitrator!
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