Flyers go all-in on Rasmus Ristolainen: Is he worth the huge price that GM Chuck Fletcher paid?

It was obvious that heading into Friday’s NHL Draft day that Philadelphia Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher wasn’t done reshaping his team this offseason. It was obvious that he was inclined to trade the No. 14 pick if the right deal presented itself.

And now it’s obvious that Fletcher felt that the acquisition of Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen qualified as “the right deal.”

Hours before the 2021 NHL Draft was slated to begin, the Flyers announced that they had sent their 2021 first-round pick, their 2023 second-round pick and defenseman Robert Hägg for to Buffalo for the 26-year-old Ristolainen, who just concluded his eighth season in the NHL. Following another tough campaign with the Sabres in 2020-21, Ristolainen admitted that he wasn’t ready to go through another rebuild, strongly implying that he wanted out of Buffalo. He got his wish, and the Flyers nabbed a player who Fletcher said the organization had targeted for three years.

“He can shoot the puck. He can skate. He’s big and strong. I think when you look at our defense corps now, we have a pretty good mix of youth and veteran players,” Fletcher said shortly after finalizing the trade. “We have guys that can play on the power play and on the penalty kill. We have size and, obviously with (Ryan) Ellis, we added a lot of experience to go with Justin Braun. I think our group, the pieces fit well together and the strength of any one defenseman is often dependent upon the strength of the group. I think all of these guys can complement each other and help each other grow their game.”

Last weekend’s trade for Ellis could be fairly described as a “home run,” a clear upgrade to the NHL roster, coming in the form of a player respected both by hockey traditionalists and the new-school analytics crowd. Ristolainen is — well, not that. The 26-year-old blueliner has long been a minutes-eater for the Sabres, basically since making their club back in the 2013-14 season. How he’s performed in those minutes, however, is very much up for debate.

So what kind of player did the Flyers just ship out one of their best assets to acquire? How much of a risk did they take? How could it end up working out? And in the wake of the move, where do they stand heading into the remainder of the offseason?

Ristolainen the player

Let’s start out with the good.

First, Ristolainen certainly has ideal size for the defenseman position, standing 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds. And he’s not afraid to use that size, consistently finishing among the league leaders in hits. He also has proven that he has the stamina to take on heavy minutes, averaging 23:53 per game for his career and counting three years over 25:00 already.

He’s only 26 years old (turns 27 in October), so he has quite a few more seasons before the aging curve should begin to hit him hard. He’s righthanded, so along with Ellis and Braun, he balances Philadelphia’s defensive pairings nicely in terms of left/right symmetry.

And he’s actually graded out quite well over the course of his career as a power-play contributor. Even the stats back that one up. Since 2015-16, his 4.73 points per 60 minutes at five-on-four rank 10th in the NHL among blueliners with at least 1,000 minutes in the situation, just behind Shayne Gostisbehere and his 4.76 and just ahead of Roman Josi (4.62) and Dougie Hamilton (4.47). Jack Eichel surely helped, but at the very least, Ristolainen can be expected to provide real power-play value.

Now, the bad.

Ristolainen may have been used like a top-pair defenseman in Buffalo, but he didn’t perform like one. Even in his better seasons, basically all of his tangible value came from his power-play prowess and a knack for avoiding penalties in spite of heavy minutes. At five-on-five/even strength, on the other hand, Ristolainen wasn’t merely bad; he was one of hockey’s worst defensemen.

That’s not an overstatement. To highlight the scope of his even-strength struggles, consider the following: Ristolainen has never once delivered a season in which his team outshot, outchanced (per Evolving-Hockey’s expected goals metric) or outscored the opposition while he was on the ice at five-on-five. Not once.

At even strength, it’s basically impossible to find a public measurement that grades Ristolainen as anything other than one of the worst even-strength defensemen in hockey over the past five seasons, and that’s even after using Evolving-Hockey’s RAPM model to estimate his direct impact on those differentials, controlling for factors like quality of teammates, competition and zone starts.

Rank is among all NHL defensemen with at least 3,000 minutes played in the situation since 2016-17. On-ice differential is five-on-five only; RAPM impact includes all even-strength minutes.

Ristolainen isn’t even an especially efficient five-on-five scorer, despite his power-play results. Over the past five seasons, he’s averaged just 0.70 points per 60 — 120th out of 171 defensemen over that time span. We’re not talking about a major driver of offense at even strength here to offset his play-driving issues.

Now, it’s not merely numbers that should lead a reasonable person to be skeptical of Ristolainen’s even-strength ability. The eye test matters. But when metrics for a player are this poor for this long, they raise an enormous red flag.

When asked why he believed that Ristolainen would perform better in Philadelphia than he did in Buffalo and why that red flag didn’t stop him from making the deal, Fletcher argued that more stability would help Ristolainen to produce results more commensurate with his reputation in hockey circles.

“I think it’s all context, and what he was asked to do: play in a lot of minutes, had a rotating cast of partners, a rotating cast of coaches,” Fletcher said. “Buffalo is clearly a team that’s been developing and had a lot of turnover in the last few years.

“I think we have some pretty good stability right now on our back end. I think anytime players are slotted in the right role with the right mix of players around them, they have a much better chance to improve and work better. We’re obviously banking on that and we like the skill set that he brings.”

Flyers fans can only hope he’s right, because setting aside the quality of player for a second, he also didn’t come for free.

Breaking down the cost

Ristolainen certainly did not come cheap.

The other player in the deal — Hägg — isn’t all that important in terms of determining the value that the Flyers relinquished. With the addition of Ristolainen, Hägg’s presence as a physical roleplayer really was no longer necessary. In addition, HockeyBuzz’s Bill Meltzer reported on Friday morning that the Flyers are close on an extension with Samuel Morin, presumably to be either the No. 6 or (more likely) No. 7 on the team’s depth chart. Hägg’s inclusion in the deal was more about the Flyers clearing out his $1.6 million cap hit with the knowledge that he no longer had a natural lineup spot.

The draft picks are another story.

The first- and second-round picks would have been a high price even for a player whose value wasn’t debatable. Dom Luszczyszyn’s model scores the Flyers’ (now-traded) first-rounder as likely to provide 5.5 wins worth of value, based on the likely outcomes of past picks at that spot, and their second-rounder to provide 1.8. Maybe the 2021 Draft is a weaker and more random draft than usual — OK, it almost definitely is — but that’s still quite a lot of value sent Buffalo’s way.

Also, even if one believes that Ristolainen is a sizable upgrade on defense for the Flyers, there’s the complicating factor of his looming, expiring contract. Ristolainen is signed only through 2021-22, meaning that absent an extension, he qualifies as a rental. In other words, the Flyers may very well have relinquished those picks for just one season of their new player.

What is especially interesting about this is the fact that Fletcher strongly hinted just last week that he had little interest in trading No. 14 for a rental player.

“If there’s some way that we can help our team — not just in the short term but more over several years, over the longer term — and it costs me the first-round pick, if I can get that type of asset, I’ll certainly look at doing it,” he said.

So does that mean that an extension is looming for Ristolainen come July 28, the first day such a contract can be signed? Not necessarily, per Fletcher.

“It’s a flat-cap world, so I don’t know what the timing would be,” Fletcher explained Friday. “Certainly, we look at Ristolainen as being a guy that should have a very good chance of being part of our future.

“That’s something we’ll look at in due course.”

And they should take their time — because, as much as giving up this value for a rental is risky, such an outcome would still be better than the alternative: re-signing Ristolainen to a lucrative extension without seeing him play in orange and black.

Weighing and challenging the primary arguments for the trade

It’s important to note that there are arguments that have been made in favor of trading for Ristolainen — perhaps not at this cost, but at least in terms of the player being added. He does have his fair share of fans, particularly within the game.

The problem? A lot of these arguments don’t really hold up to closer inspection. Let’s go through five of them:

1. Ristolainen’s numbers were only poor because of how bad Buffalo was

It’s true that for the entirety of Ristolainen’s time in Buffalo, the team performed quite poorly. They didn’t make the playoffs once during his tenure, and the most wins they produced in a single season was 35 (against 47 losses). Along the way, Ristolainen played with a lot of very underwhelming teammates.

But if this argument holds water, why did Ristolainen’s objectively good teammates all play better away from him than with him?

Metrics from 2018-19 through 2020-21, and five-on-five only, courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.

When talented players in Buffalo skated with Ristolainen at five-on-five, they ended up getting outshot, outchanced and outscored by the opposition. Yet when they took shifts away from Ristolainen — in the same environment, on the same team — they helped the awful Sabres to outshoot, outchance and outscore opponents.

Now, this type of with-or-without-you analysis isn’t perfect. But it sure seems to hint that it’s not that his teammates dragged him down but instead that he dragged them down.

2. The Flyers needed a physical presence on the blueline

Maybe! In fact, it’s fair to say they probably did need more size and physicality on the back end, especially after replacing the 6-foot-5 Philippe Myers with the gritty-but-small 5-foot-10 Ryan Ellis last weekend. There’s absolutely something to be said for having a mix of styles in a team’s defensemen.

But Ristolainen wasn’t the only physical defenseman available. David Savard is a looming UFA, and Pierre LeBrun reported Friday that Tampa Bay has been more than willing to trade his rights to any teams interested in locking him down. Elliotte Friedman reported last month that Travis Hamonic is no longer limiting his free-agent options to teams in Western Canada, as he has in the past. Zach Bogosian brings grit to the table, and while he’s more of a third-pair-type player, he also wouldn’t have cost a first-rounder to acquire, since he’s also a pending free agent. All three are righthanded shots and were potential options for the Flyers in free agency.

Also, Ristolainen’s sky-high hit totals may be impressive at first glance, and anyone who has watched him play certainly knows he’s capable of throwing his weight around, but they’re also partially a function of how much time he spends in the defensive zone. When a player’s team often finds itself without the puck with him on the ice, high hit totals can result. That doesn’t mean the team wouldn’t be better off just having the puck more.

3. Ristolainen is a talented and gifted defenseman

Well, yes. It is true that Ristolainen was blessed with serious physical gifts, particularly for his size. There’s a reason, after all, that he was selected No. 8 back in 2013 and was playing 19 minutes a game in the NHL midway through his draft-plus-one season. He skates well, possesses solid puck skills and is obviously a physical presence. That package sure seems like it should produce a high-end defenseman.

But his puck skills haven’t led to him grading out as a strong NHL puck-mover, and his size/skating combination hasn’t helped him become a stingy defender of zone entries, either. From 2016-17 through 2019-20, Corey Sznajder’s manually-tracked dataset finds that 28 percent of Ristolainen’s zone-exit attempts led to possession exits for the Sabres, with the league average for blueliners over that time standing at 34 percent. As for defending entries, Ristolainen allowed 69.7 percent of oncoming attackers to gain entry into his zone with possession of the puck. League average over that time period for blueliners was 63.2 percent.

In fairness, Ristolainen’s zone-exit rates were better in Sznajder’s 2020-21 sample (36 percent), though his entry-defense rates remained below average (65 percent). Still, shouldn’t a plus skater with good puck skills be generating exits and defending entries better than he has?

4. Perhaps he’ll work well with Travis Sanheim

This is one that can’t be proven either way, nor is it even a guarantee that Sanheim ends up Ristolainen’s primary partner. But that pairing does make sense — Ellis seemingly is locked in alongside Ivan Provorov on pair No. 1, and Justin Braun is better served as a third-pair defenseman at age 34. That leaves Ristolainen on the second pairing, and Sanheim is the Flyers’ clear No. 3 defenseman on the depth chart.

Sanheim’s two biggest flaws as a defenseman are his lack of physicality (despite his size) and his inconsistent off-puck instincts in the defensive zone. A partnership with Ristolainen certainly goes a long way toward addressing the former issue, but the latter? Ristolainen’s defensive results — both by the numbers and the eye test — haven’t been good thus far in his NHL career. It’s possible they could click. It’s also possible their biggest weakness will overlap and compound itself.

5. In lesser usage, Ristolainen will be fine

This is the main one that will be thrown around in the coming days and weeks. Ristolainen may have struggled in first-pair usage in Buffalo, but give him easier minutes and he’ll be fine. He might even thrive.

As with the last argument, this one requires a wait-and see approach. Ristolainen has never been used in anything but a big-minutes role at the NHL level. But it is worth noting that over the past two seasons, Buffalo did pull back on Ristolainen’s minutes, giving him less than 23 per game after four consecutive seasons over 24. It had no real impact on his five-on-five results; they remained as poor as ever.

Also, there’s one big issue with this line of thinking: The Flyers didn’t pay the cost associated with a reclamation project. A first and a second isn’t a “he’s struggled but we think we can fix him” cost. It’s a “we really want this player” cost. His results in Buffalo don’t warrant that kind of enthusiasm. The cost doesn’t reflect the clear risk here.

Reasons for optimism?

That was quite a lot of negativity directed at one Ristolainen. And even if it may be warranted, it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion that he’s destined to struggle in Philadelphia. Friday’s trade could work out for the Flyers, and not just because of the inherent randomness involved with the sport of hockey. Here are some reasons for optimism regarding that particular outcome.

First, his success with Jake McCabe as a partner is legitimately interesting. Despite struggling with Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Jeff Skinner and essentially every defenseman that Buffalo has thrown his way over eight seasons, he actually worked quite well with the unheralded McCabe over the past three seasons, even by the numbers. In fact, in over 1,100 minutes at five-on-five together since 2018-19, the duo put up a solid 51.26 percent expected goals for rate. McCabe is far from Sanheim stylistically, but the successful partnership of McCabe-Ristolainen provides hope that if the Flyers do find the right partner for him, Ristolainen could thrive.

Second, the soul-crushing effect of Buffalo might be real, especially in recent years. Taylor Hall scored two goals in 37 games with the Sabres this season, only to pot eight in 16 after being traded. Skinner had one great season in Buffalo and then fell off a cliff. Defenseman Brandon Montour went from a break-even play-driver in his first two seasons in Anaheim to a statistical dumpster fire in Buffalo — and then graded out great by the numbers after being traded to Florida. Colin Miller went from advanced-stat favorite in Vegas to dud with the Sabres. It is possible that, just maybe, as Fletcher hinted, the Sabres are uniquely incompetent when it comes to extracting value out of players, with the exceptions of ones who are simply too talented to ruin, like Eichel.

Third, last season was actually a very interesting one for Ristolainen, in the sense that briefly, it looked like it might be a potential statistical breakthrough. Through 10 games, Ristolainen (largely alongside McCabe) posted an eye-popping 57.28 percent expected goals share and a 60.92 percent actual goals share — on a team that, over that same time period, was at 48.75 percent and 39.74 percent.

Then, COVID-19 happened. Ristolainen was hit with an especially bad case of the virus, which kept him out for a month, and openly acknowledged Friday that after returning the aftereffects of the virus lingered.

“I don’t think I was playing at 100 percent,” he said. “I don’t think I felt the way I felt the first 10 games at all (after coming back).”

The pre/post discrepancy in his numbers is staggering:

All metrics five-on-five only and courtesy of Evolving-Hockey.

Yes, 10 games is a small sample size, especially weighed against seven straight years of poor results. But there’s a clear best-case-scenario narrative here for the Flyers: Ristolainen was in the midst of a long-awaited mid-20s realization of his potential, and COVID-19 ruined it for him. Now, as he assured the media Friday, he’s back at 100 percent, given time to recuperate from the demands of the season. Perhaps a healthy Ristolainen will pick up right where he left off.

And if not? Well, at the very least, Ristolainen (6.5 wins above replacement over past four seasons) should be a roster upgrade over the only player sent out to bring him in (Hägg: -10.8). There’s some optimism for you.

Final thoughts

Friday’s trade for Rasmus Ristolainen — perhaps even more so than the deal for Ellis — will go down as a defining trade for Fletcher and the Flyers, in large part because of how questionable it seems in the moment. And that’s not just because of the heavy cost.

There’s long been a gap in perception of quality between traditionalists and advanced-stat acolytes when it comes to Ristolainen. But this isn’t the Seth Jones debate, where one side thinks he’s an elite blueliner and the other views him as merely good. This is an absolute chasm. By valuing Ristolainen as much as they have in this deal, by espousing an endorsement of his talent that runs so counter to public advanced stat evaluations, it leaves only one real comparable case: Andrew MacDonald, back in 2013.

Obviously, Flyers fans remember how that turned out.

As of now, Ristolainen isn’t signed to a cap-crippling deal the way that MacDonald was shortly after being acquired. But based on Fletcher’s comment about him having a very good chance of being part of the future, the most realistic scenario where Ristolainen isn’t re-signed is if he proves to be quite bad in 2021-22, and in that case, the Flyers relinquished first- and second-round picks for a poorly-performing rental. That’s not a good outcome, either.

Are there paths to this deal working out in a big way for Philadelphia? Sure. Maybe Ristolainen and Sanheim develop immediately chemistry and form a rock-solid, smooth-skating second pair for years to come. Maybe handed easier minutes and more strategic usage, Ristolainen will be fine and even good. Maybe COVID-19 masked a looming breakout season this past year. Or maybe Buffalo does simply just ruin players, and once they leave, they are destined to dramatically improve.

But if the trade doesn’t play out in that fashion — if Ristolainen is everything the public metrics view him to be — this is a trade that will be long remembered, because the reasons for its potential failure were so glaringly obvious from the moment it was executed.

Fletcher took a big risk today. He better hope he’s right.

(Photo: Bill Wippert / NHLI via Getty Images)