Askarov might just already be better than Saros
I value goalies for both skill and consistency. I'm not ready to make any judgements on such a low sample size, but he may end up being better and that would kinda sting. I mean he had his issue with the organisation (and I really disliked the demands with nothing to show for in NHL) and I appreciate the fact that they didn't give in, but they also kind of cemented the outcome when they signed Saros long term. If you have a (russian) goalie with temper like that, you can't expect them to sit back and wait for an opportunity to probably present itself somewhere in the future. Maybe.
I'm a fan of guys playing their career in one place, so I was a little conflicted about shipping out Josi, Forsberg and Saros while I knew this could be as perfect of an opportunity to rebuild as you ever going to get. You have your possible future franchise goalie in the pipeline, good prospect pool and some good veteran players and for all we know, maybe could have got an established young(ish) player or two in return.
It's always easy to be smart in hindsight, but man what could have been. Fully understanding it could have been a disaster, but again, in hindsight we were facing one anyway
I'm a bit biased as I'm really not a fan of him and how he played the situation (nor how the organisation played the situation either for the record), but I don't think he's better than Saros at the moment. We've seen goalie prospects rise fast and go down even faster. I'm ready to admit he's better once he's been better for long enough, consistently enough.