The Rasmus Ristolainen Contract is a Mistake for Philadelphia

No Flyers player in recent memory has seemed more divisive than Rasmus Ristolainen. The 27-year-old defenseman has somehow divided the entirety of Flyers fandom into two separate camps, both willing to die for their beliefs. Especially on social media, either Risolainen is considered the missing physical piece the team has been missing for generations or is “objectively” the worst defenseman in the league by a wide margin.

Ristolainen came to the Flyers carrying some pretty lofty expectations due to the price it took to put him in the Orange and Black. Long-time fan favorite Shayne Gostisbhere was shipped off with picks to Arizona to clear team cap space, and Risto’s acquisition itself led to the Flyers handing over a great deal of draft capital, including defenseman Robert Hagg.

The Ghost deal itself cleared cap for other places as well, so the entirety of that specific deal doesn’t fall solely on his shoulders. That said, the sheer volume of assets given up, especially the two defensemen, shows that Chuck Fletcher viewed Ristolainen as a potentially missing piece that could put the Flyers over the edge. If anything, Fletcher’s decision to retain Ristolainen at a 5 year, 5.1 million dollar AAV price tag only solidifies that.

Onto the man himself, Ristolainen has garnered himself a reputation as being a big physical player. Standing at 6’4” and weighing in at 215 pounds, the big man has more than an adequate frame for that role. And when push comes to shove, he often lives up to his reputation, regularly piling up massive hit totals both in Buffalo as well as in Philadelphia.

Speaking of Buffalo, when talking about Ristolainen, it is impossible to ignore the sheer amount of baggage he brings with him when it comes to evaluating his career. Ristolainen was drafted 8th overall in the 2013 Draft and was an incredibly hyped prospect for the Sabres to get. But the Sabres of the late 2010s were anything but competitive, with the team producing some truly putrid seasons, and many of their highly touted prospects failing to live up to their potential.

Ristolainen was far from an exception. He struggled mightily in Buffalo, with a number of reasons cited for his poor play. Blaming the Sabres development team, or simply the awful play of the team around him became a common source for Ristolainen’s poor play as a Sabre. Ristolainen has found himself a common piece of trade bait in this time, being openly unhappy with Buffalo’s losing ways, while also being sold more as a player with “intangibles” rather than on-ice performance.

Before we dive deeper into Ristolainen as a player, and what his statistics may say, zooming out may provide a slightly clearer picture of Risto’s time in Buffalo. While counting statistics like goals and assists can certainly be dramatically affected by the quality of a player’s team, there are a number of additional statistics that can take into account the poor play of teammates, to determine the individual quality of play for an individual.

Take a player like Sam Reinhart for example. An admittedly younger player at a different position, Reinhart has spent time on a number of the same Buffalo Sabres teams that Ristolainen did. Despite Reinhart’s counting numbers never leaping off of the page in these times, when his more advanced statistics were monitored, he found himself far more of an analytical darling than Ristolainen ever managed. And by that, I mean statistics showed Reinhart was a quality top-six forward on a bad team. Ristolainen’s statistics painted a much worse picture.

And it’s here that I must make a plain statement. Statistically, Rasmus Ristolainen is not a good defenseman at the NHL level. Through a staggeringly high number of advanced analytics, Ristolainen routinely places not only at the bottom of the truly incompetent Flyers defensive corps but of all players in the NHL.

Contrary to this, there are a number of arguments in favor of Ristolainen’s play that have become prevalent not only in Sabres circles prior to his trade but especially in Flyers circles during his times in Philadelphia. I have no intentions of ignoring these arguments, but first I feel it important to set a baseline on what advanced statistics generally say about Ristolainen’s play.

Ristolainen Clears The Crease: One of the biggest arguments in favor of Rasmus is his ability to clear the crease in front of the goalie. People that fight on this hill argue that the Flyers have a soft net-front presence until Ristolainen joined the team. I think it is important to add that not only is this untrue, but the Flyers’ net-front presence has actually weakened.

For instance, take a look at the following heatmap of shots on Flyers’ goaltenders when Ristolainen was on the ice:

The bottom two of these heat maps are designed to show where most of the opposing team shot the puck on net from. As is visible on these charts, the highest concentration of shots when Ristolainen is iced come immediately in front of the net, both on the penalty kill and even strength. The only area that can even hold a candle to the same volume of action is just behind the dot on the right side. This is especially concerning as Ristolainen is a right-handed defenseman, and should thus be shutting down the right side, rather than leaving both it, and the crease wide open.

Ristolainen Is Hard to Play Against: The argument that other players consider Ristolainen “hard to play against” is an interesting one. Interesting because it is true, many different polls both among the general players, and those asked about the Flyers specifically say so. To many, this would be a massive weight in favor of Ristolainen’s style of game, since even star players in the league have deemed him a difficult opponent.

However, this argument isn’t necessarily made as a statement of Ristolainen’s play. Of course, Ristolainen is “difficult to play against.” He physically injures his opponents. Ristolainen makes hits. Hard hits. That much has never been in question. However, the circumstances in which he makes these hits are far from equal.

There are an incredible number of times that can be pointed to, argued both in and against Ristolainen, where the defenseman lays the body down for a big hit. The issue is more often than not, Ristolainen is taking himself out of position to make these hits, leaving other players to make up for the missing defenseman, often resulting in either a goal or a quality scoring opportunity.

The Travis Sanheim Defense: It would be unfair to discuss Rasmus Ristolainen’s play without at any point touching on his defensive partner in Philadelphia: Travis Sanheim. In their time together, both Sanheim and Ristolainen have seen a much greater amount of praise than either was used to.

Ristolainen was suddenly given credit for every quality play Sanheim made, and conversely, Sanheim gained a ton of credit for covering up Ristolainen’s mistakes. From an objective and analytical standpoint, the truth is clear, but the eye-test crowd finds themselves unconvinced.

By every potential analytic, Travis Sanheim is the best defenseman on the Flyers by a comfortable margin. Offensively keen, and defensively good, Sanheim has emerged in the 21-22 season as a defenseman that the Flyers should build around more than any other, especially considering his contract and age.

I don’t attempt to claim Sanheim is a flawless player, he isn’t, but his play has indicated, both by the eye-test and advanced analytics, that he is the best defenseman on this team, and that trading him would be a mistake. Despite this, people still argue in favor of Ristolainen as a better player than Sanheim, and those people are analytically wrong in every potential metric.

If the Flyers were to trade Sanheim in favor of keeping Risto? Sanheim is earmarked as the most recent Flyer to suddenly become elite after leaving Philadelphia.

Rasmus Ristolainen is a plug, I know that may seem aggressive now, but the 27-year-old defenseman has only deteriorated defensively since joining the league, and has not once shown signs of improvement.

Offensively, of course, Ristolainen has more value. He is certainly no stranger to the odd highlight-reel play. But when the entire season is viewed as a whole, those highlight plays truly are few and far between, and are only exacerbated by a social media presence determined to see him succeed.

If you ask me, when every other fanbase laughs at you for acquiring a player, laughs at you for keeping the player, and clowns you for extending that player, everyone else isn’t wrong. You are trying to cope with yet another bad decision by the Flyers front office. Ristolainen would have been better off traded for a bag of pucks at the deadline, now he’s the Flyers’ #3 for the next five years.