Ok, I get it but, Desmith is not an NHL caliber player so..
I'd wager some $$ that he's a suitable backup for a number of teams in the league right now. Reason being is that our team blew chunks last year at ES and on b2bs. If that's what you're judging him on then it's not justified.
Personally, if we're talking NHL backup - here's the truth:
No matter how talented they are, they play about 25-30 games a season right? None of them are winning all of them, in fact the majority play in back to back circumstances when the team is already run down (or perhaps saving themselves for the tougher team the following night). As such, historically backups don't usually fair much over .500.
Therefore, I'd much rather gamble 675k earning me a .500 record in the 30 games he plays (even though they only play a part in that win or loss in b2b situations) than 3-4M. You think if we had Ward at 4M a year he's winning us an extra 5+ games? I don't. Perhaps he gets us 1 or 2 more wins than a DeSmith does, but at a 3M price difference - so does the better forward/defender we acquire. It's easier to place blame on your backup goalie than it is on your regulars who otherwise put up stellar numbers. The problem with this logic is that expensive backups are generally a waste as it's usually those regulars playing sub-par that costs the team to lose the game in the first place. If your rationale points to the playoffs - then the flaw there is that relatively no teams (barring some cinderella run) are winning without their #1. You see what happened to WAS this year..they thought they had Murray in the pipeline and that came crashing in their faces. Murray rising as a #1 was foreseen long before it happened because he had stellar numbers in every league he played in. That's not a normal story. Platoon teams have also fallen flat. St Louis two years ago looked like they had two capable number ones - that was entirely Hitchcock's system as those goalies went on to completely suck when they were traded/he left.
