Did he have other offers?
Cause IMO, if he signed in the Detroit organization, he knows he needs to develop.
If he was special, he would have went to another franchise.
I couldn't find an article talking about anyone pursuing him, though I did find a dead link to an NHL.com page that was associated with the Jets from a few years ago. The vast majority of videos were highlight vids that were game wrap ups.
When I say nothing special, I don't mean so much him as a total player, but any one attribute. I readily admit that I haven't dug up much of anything on him, but we'll be very fortunate if he can be a Bykov level player. Which isn't bad, but it's tempered, ya know?
Considering he's a free asset I'm not sure he has to be special. If he plays 1 more year in Europe and can come over for the 18-19 season and play 3rd pairing minutes or maybe even 2nd pairing that's excellent for us. He seems to have NHL size it's just a matter of if he has the skills to play at the next level.
Well, next season the only D we look to lose is Green. Where are we seeing Hicketts, Cholo, Hronek, Saarijarvi, etc. in a year? Again, to reiterate what I said above, I'm not against the signing. We don't lose anything bringing him into the organization. But I think the hope has to be that he makes a serious jump next year that is a bit beyond a normal or expected development, because we have a lot of guys who I think could slot into second or third pairing minutes in a couple of years.