TSN’s Darren Dreger is reporting that Philadelphia Flyers defender Rasmus Ristolainen is drawing a lot of interest on the NHL trade market. The 30-year-old defenseman is his fourth year with the Flyers and has two years left on his contract after this season with a cap hit of $5.1MM. Ristolainen has been playing in Philadelphia’s top four and averaging over 20 minutes a game this season, but he is likely best suited as a bottom-pairing defenseman, which isn’t ideal given his cap number.
Ristolainen hasn’t produced much offense this season with just a goal and four assists in 22 games, and his underlying numbers leave a lot to be desired. Philadelphia has controlled just 43.8% of the even-strength expected goals with Ristolainen on the ice according to Natural Stat Trick and controlled possession just 45.1% of the time (as per Hockey Reference).
In other evening notes:
- Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic reports that St. Louis Blues defenseman Philip Broberg skated with the team today but is not yet ready to return to the lineup tomorrow when they take on the New Jersey Devils. Broberg was initially given a four to six-week timeline to return from his knee injury and likely won’t return to the lineup until the weekend at the earliest. The 23-year-old is in his first season with the Blues and has been very good offensively this season, posting two goals and seven assists in 12 games.
- Chris Johnston of TSN is reporting that the Pittsburgh Penguins are active in the trade market, looking for younger players who can slide into their lineup this season as well as for the long term. The Penguins have made two trades in recent weeks, one to move out 35-year-old Lars Eller, and another to bring in 23-year-old Philip Tomasino. The Penguins are in a tough spot as they can’t bottom out and go into a full rebuild with Sidney Crosby still playing at a high level, but they also don’t want to mortgage the future for a short-term fix. General manager Kyle Dubas has made several moves for former first-round picks who haven’t panned out with their previous teams, including Tamasino, Cody Glass and Jesse Puljujärvi.
Flyers should be able to get a second round pick and mid range prospect without retaining any money or a first if retain 50%
The Pens have up to 3 waves of selling ahead.
They could do a bit of a reshuffle, where they just rearrange deck chairs and try to collect some mid picks in doing so.
Then comes the firesale. Pettersson, Rust or Rakell, Ned, whoever. Collect picks. Paired with that is the collect picks to take bad contracts to fill their spots move. The ideal example is MTL with Monahan.
Then one final round of selling, which would be the most lucrative, would be selling off the young players they have now in what would then be their primes. Assuming they pan out, of course, you can move Blomqvist, McGroarty, Pickering (might keep him actually) Broz, etc. and any of the reclamation projects mentioned above.
Those trades will net a lot of solid picks including some extra firsts. We’ll earn a few top 5 picks ourselves.
Basically, no one in the current organization should be part of what is ultimately the next core that results from those picks and should be sold in due time.
Risto is headed to the Panthers at the deadline
Why is the great Kyle Dubas active in the trade market? The Penguins are dust, Dubas actually made them worse since his arrival, The writing is on the wall! Long,Long rebuild.