****ty defenseman for 1st, prospect and top-6 forward? LOL

Guess you don't watch him at all, He's far from a "****ty" defenseman. Still eating up tons of minutes on a sabres team thats been solid so far. And again another point that I'm stealing from someone else on this site is that he's played for 4 coaches, all of which have played him more than anyone else, kind of says a lot

He is good on offense. Suuuuucks defensively. Always out of position, doesnt cover crap, a ton of mistakes all the fricking time.. actually.. his defensive numbers are similar to effing Cody Ceci.. He is just plain bad defenseman and you wont get one part of that package for him. I watched him a lot. And no coach of those 4 was able to fix his game.. which also says a lot.

lol what Risto are you watching? just because lots on here say that he's bad defensively doesn't make it true. Go and actually watch the games and see how much of a difference he makes. You don't play as many minutes as he does every night and be horrible defensively.

I actually watch the ****ing games. I watch Risto a LOT. I dont go with opinions of people here about guys. I make my own judgements and opinions on players. Risto is really really bad defensively. Most of that is covered by his physical play and blocking shots, but he makes a ton of mistakes. Numbers prove it, eye-test prove it.. somehow Risto is being talked about as very valuable which is something I hope would end soon. Can he be good Dman? Yes, he has a lot of tools to work with.. is he a good all-around Dman now? Nope, not at all.

Would appear we're not going to agree. (kind of wondering what "a lot" means)

And thats fine.

A lot about watching.. over past 4 years I watched at least 60 sabres games, which is pretty good measurement.
A lot about his tools.. he has a lot of tools to work with such as his size, skill, speed and offensive abilities.. he needs to calm down his game a lot and slow it down and that would help Risto get into better position to succeed defensively.. someone needs to help him do that.

Asking price I think should be:
decent Top 6 forward
mid first round pick
B-B+ prospect

OR

High end Top 6 forward
Late first round pick
B-B+ Prospect

***

This is INSANE.

Hes definitely not a ****ty defenseman but yes these asks are unrealistic. I would say, depending on the caliber and the position (center vs winger) of the top 6 forward he can definitely fetch it.

Risto is probably the most by polar opinionated player in the league, sure -40 looks really bad hes had four 40+ point seasons in a row on a bottom feeder team for nearly all those years. If paired with a more defensively minded partner like Lindholm or Martinez or something those numbers probably look a lot better

Most overrated dman in the league. He's decent offensive ability, but he's not good enough offensively to justify being a turnstile defensively. If he had that elite level offensive talent he might get a pass for being terrible in his own end (hi Brent Burns) but he doesn't.

I dont think Risto is sh*tty by any means and his contract isnt bad for a guy who can eat up 20 minutes with good offensive numbers, but he does have his flaws for sure and I do think the asking price mentioned above is waayyy too much.
How do you ask for a middle first rounder? So if a top 10 teams trades for him, they'll have to get worse? or a bottom 10 team needs to get better? or a middle 10 team stays the sameish?
I would say a 2nd, decent prospect and a B level gets it done, but he makes north of 5 and so many teams are in a cap crunch which means salary would need to be taken back

It's not insane, but I will admit it is a bit of any overpay. (Try to remember that I'm doing this from the standpoint of not wanting to trade him at all. typically when a team doesn't want to trade a player you have to overpay to get him). Given that I can admit it's an overpay, its not extremely so.

@SammyT_51
@CrossFireX33
@CD282
@Ledge_And_Dairy
@Claesson4Norris
@Masterjuddi

I included all of you because you all commented. A couple of points.
First, IMO CrossFireX33 returns are what he would want. Those are his asking price. The difference between asking price and selling price are often very different.
Second, It is really hard to imagine a coach (whose job depends on who is on the ice) would play any one for nearly half of the game unless the coach had faith in him. Four different coaches have played Ristolainen 24 minutes a night, that sounds like they all had faith in him.
Third, there is no rush to trade him. The team is under the cap, the team has 3 NHL quality defensemen on the mend, yet have the NHL 4th best GAA. The team is off to a great start, why trade him unless the return is remarkable.
Fourth, a fair trade would be a young consistent 60 pt forward (one for one), or a first and a good prospect, or a 2nd and great prospect. This year Ristolainen has really impressed me, but he is not Hedman, Burns, Karlsson or Eriksson, so I could not expect more than any of them would return in a trade.

I also think that since he is playing better under Kruger and is now much happier with the direction the team is going that he will likely start enjoying the game more and that will translate to better play. Not to mention under Kruger's and the other coaches' tutelage the mistakes we see him make will start to dwindle. Do I think he is going to be a Hedman or Burns? No but I really think people severely undervalue him. A lot of people have talked about the fact that he has played under 4 head coaches and none of them got him to play well but they also didn't get the REST of the team to play well either so I think it's unfair to target Risto and say it's all his fault. I say by the time the trade deadline gets here he will either be much more valuable or we would just want to keep him.

Dahlin makes more mistakes than Risto. That means he sucks? Good players make mistakes, so long as the learn from it. Risto is slowly learning but learning nonetheless