Ville Husso

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

20 appearances, 10-8-2, a 3.25 goals-against average and a .884 save percentage. No shutouts. His career figure is .8995 across 165 games, so this was a long way under his own standard.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 205, which is the modern build, and he takes up the net well when he is square. The technique is sound and unspectacular: he is a positional goaltender who wants the shot to come to him.

The trouble is lateral. On plays that move him across the crease he arrives late and reaching, and against a second-chance team that is where the goals come from. Rebound control is ordinary.

The Mental Game

He has been a starter, lost the job, and come back as a backup, which is a harder road than it sounds and he has not visibly soured on it. 20 appearances behind a defence that conceded the fourth-most expected goals in the league is not a fair test of anybody.

The Intangibles

He is 31, and the 2 numbers that matter both point the same way: .884 last season, and a club whose goaltending came in 33 goals worse than the chances it faced would predict. Anaheim has not solved this position and Husso is not obviously the answer to it either.

The team in front of him finished 3rd in the NHL in even-strength expected goals for. If either goaltender gets to league average, this becomes a different club overnight. That is the whole story of the season here.