Ducks goalie Ville Husso has changed the perception and direction of his career this season, one save at a time.<\/p>\n
He was described as a salary dump by many last February when the Ducks acquired the final year of his contract from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for future considerations. That was during\u00a0 a campaign in which he earned nearly $5 million against the salary cap, but made most of his appearances in the minors. Poached from rival St. Louis by Detroit, Husso tumbled down their netminding ladder because of injuries and mixed form.<\/p>\n
Husso\u2019s $2.2 million re-signing raised some eyebrows as well, especially with two higher-priced goalies projected to relegate him to a No. 3 role that would again see him toil at a lower level. Some speculated the cap hit was designed to enable him to pass through waivers and back down to the minors.<\/p>\n
Yet Husso solidified himself as the backup and further cemented his role when Petr Mr\u00e1zek underwent season-ending hip surgery.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old Finn\u2019s fight to become an NHL regular again earned him a nod for the Bill Masterton Trophy, which is presented to \u201cthe player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to ice hockey\u201d every season. Each of the 32 franchises produces one candidate for the award.<\/p>\n
Husso has gone 9-8-2 and provided some timely wins during a season where Mr\u00e1zek wobbled and then fell out of service completely while Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l was on track to set a career high in games played for a second consecutive campaign.<\/p>\n
Another Finn and a flashy one at that, Teemu Sel\u00e4nne, is the only Ducks Masterton winner. He was presented with the award in 2006 following the league\u2019s season-long lockout and return with new rules. Selanne had 40 goals and 90 points in his first season after recovering from reconstructive knee surgery and would go on to play until age 43.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ducks goalie Ville Husso has changed the perception and direction of his career this season, one save at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[2210,233,5292,1739,5,4,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-547907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim-ducks","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-ducks","10":"tag-anaheimducks","11":"tag-ducks","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116370735062113175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}