Quoting: Otto_Kirov
Dunno about this. I like Husso, but almost 5 mil for three years for a guy who has 57 career games is a lot. I can understand needing someone to chew minutes but you can find journeymen for cheaper who can do that.
Very sink or swim. This either works out or it goes horrendous for Detroit and they have to sell him for diminished assets.
Who would you suggest they acquire via trade or free agency as an alternative?
Holtby is apparently not playing next season. Campbell and Kuemper are rumored to want long term deals, and are also unlikely to choose a team in the middle stage of a rebuild as their destination.
That leaves Jones, Tokarski, Greiss, and Gillies as the only UFA goalies available who played more than 20 games last season. None of those guys were good.
In the trade market there was Georgiev, and Vanecek. Vanecek only has 1 more season than Husso, and hasn't played at a level as high as him. Georgiev has the best resume of the three, but also has not played as good as Husso did last season, and has only played a max of 34 games in a season. Mrazek was also available.
Gibson is available, but doesn't fit Detroit's timeline as they likely want a goalie signed 2-3 years to bridge to Cossa. The acquisition cost for Gibson should also be much higher than a 3rd.
Matt Murray is available, and likely comes with an asset. He would have been the best possible trade option for Detroit because he is on a 2 year deal, and he has the highest ceiling of any goalie available. The problem with Murray is that he is unreliable due to being injury prone. Detroit is likely at a stage in their rebuild where they want to start pushing for the playoffs. Which isn't to say they will make it in, but I doubt they want to set their new core up to have a losers mentality like the 2010-2015 Oilers rebuild that was notorious for that.
With all of the above in mind, I don't see how this is a bad move. Let's look at the absolute worst case scenario that Husso plays badly and is on waivers before the end of the season. There are no real long term consequences to that since Detroit has so much cap space. The opportunity cost is that it hurts the development of their core group since they lose more this season. That risk is going to come with any of the above available goalies. There was clearly no perfect and consistent goalie available who was a realistic target for Detroit. They had to roll the dice on one of them, just like Colorado and New Jersey did.