Thats fine with me. Ill take John Marino who has more points and a way less cap hit

So? Schultz is a pending free agent. You guys are looking at this short-sighted. Risto improves the team defense short and longer term. Risto would be a replacement for Schultz who can then be traded for assets that are better than what the team is losing here in this deal.

No, they have cheaper options within the organization. The cap space can be used in a better way, not on an overrated defender.

He’s not overrated though. We’ve already been through that. You can spout it all you want, doesn’t make it true. And who do we have that could replace Schultz? Ruhwedel as our 3rd pair RD? Yeahhhhhh that would make for great use of that space. And Galchenyuk is the overrated one in this trade. The pens don’t get anything better for Galchenyuk. I’m willing to bet. They will have to trade him in a buy low/sell low trade soon.

You can spout he's not overrated all you want, doesn't make it true. And if Ruhwedel is the 1st name you think of, clearly you dont follow the penguins that closely

Must... not... get... into... another... Risto fight... AAAAAHHHH!

Risto has been useless at 5v5 his entire career, and there isn't a clear way the Sabres could have covered that beyond "literally never play him at 5v5", which isn't really a good solution.

Why do I say he's useless at 5v5? His even strength goals above replacement (EVDGAR+EVOGAR, essentially a measure of how well a player drives results for his team at 5v5) has been negative every year of his career until this one. Has he turned a corner? Well, his defense has dramatically improved from utterly apocalyptic to league average, but his offence is responsible for double the impact of his defence, and that's been the result of his goals numbers dramatically outperforming his expected goals numbers. For some guys, generally elite shooters like Patrik Laine, that can be sustainable, but over a small sample (small here meaning less than about 3 seasons) it can pretty much entirely be checked up to good luck. The defensive improvements MIGHT be real, but it's a small sample, we have plenty of data on Risto sucking defensively, it isn't evident that he's patched his biggest defensive problem, and he's at an age where players generally are what they are, without any major improvements. So yeah, Not sold.

The argument then goes, "well, maybe he's been in a bad situation". First off, crummy GAR numbers aren't the results of any of the following: Quality of teammates, quality of competition, zone starts, score effects or venue effects (and I've almost certainly missed some). All of this stuff is accounted for in the regression model that the metric is based off of. But, just to be EXTRA sure it's Risto sucking, we can look at hand-tracked microstats, courtesy of Corey Sznajder. There are 2 areas that are VITAL for defensemen that these stats track: zone xits and entry defense. Let's see how Risto does!

Zone exits:
Possession exits/60: 35th percentile (fewer exits than 65% of the league)
Possession exit percentage: 18th percentile (lower percentage of exit attempts resulting in an exit with possession than 82% of the league)
Well that isn't impressive. Maybe he can redeem himself with entry defense!
Entry defense:
Breakups/60: 14th percentile (fewer breakups than 86% of the league)
Possession Entries Allowed/60: 37th percentile (allows more entries with possession than 63% of the league)
Possession Entry % Allowed: 14th percentile (allows a higher percentage of entry attempts against him to succeed than 86% of the league)
Welp, that isn't impressive.

Risto's pretty boxcars and occasional good season by GAR are pretty much entirely driven by 2 things: his legitimately elite powerplay ability, and his ability to avoid taking penalties. Those aren't invalid, but they can be inconsistent, the value of penalty differential has been contested with how frequently NHL refs award make-up calls, and it's long been demonstrated that 5v5 is the most important strength state. Tons of people defend Risto on here for flashy hits and pretty boxcars, but a defenseman who constantly causes his team to get shelled whenever he's on the ice fundamentally isn't anything that you can build around. Buffalo should be trying to dump his contract ASAP, as Dahlin taking PP time from him could make that a LOT harder to do.

Yet you’ve not given one reason how he’s been overrated. You were wrong on what he’s been known for as his own team doesn’t seem to use him that way. And what other player in the pens organization are we going to put in the 3rd RD spot that’s actually even somewhat proven? Cause a team that’s a contender doesn’t bank on players that haven’t played a single game with the nhl team until they prove themselves in camp to stay.

Yet you've not given one reason how he's not overrated. The guy is an offensive dman with 9 points. Thats his job. Score points. He's currently getting outproduced by John Marino. John Marino moves up and replaces Schults. Dumo, Letang, Pettersson, Marino, JJ. Last spot can be battled in the offseason between JOP, Rikkola, and Addison. If neither of them work out, find a cheap 3rd pairing dman, like they just did this year. Zero reason to trade for a guy with a 5.4 cap hit when there are cheaper options that are getting better every year. Everything you said is wrong. Look at Petterson last year. Look at Marino this year.

Risto's overrated, I went into this.

Tbh Galch is pretty overrated too. The argument with hims was always that playing him at centre could bring back some of his early-career success, including his 14.7 GAR year in 15-16, but since that year he's now in his 4th straight sub-replacement seasons in 3 different organizations. Tocchet was a coach of the year candidate last year and Galch still put up a putrid -3.2 GAR with the Coyotes. Sucks to say, but Galch is pretty much done at this point, and his rep as an underrated and incorrectly used player is pretty much the only reason he's still in the league.

At 5v5 ZAR is pretty clearly the best player in this deal. Even after accounting for Risto's PP excellence and terrific penalty differential, ZAR might still have the edge, especially after an 18-19 season in which he drove play very well in limited usage. This entire thread and argument is over a trade where the best 5v5 player is Zach Aston-Reese.

There's something wrong with us.

Sure, why not, let's have the points are a useless stat argument too. It's Saturday, I don't have to get up tomorrow!

Here are some arguments using Patrik Laine as an example:

1. Points say precisely nothing about defense. This one's pretty self-explanatory: points only occur on goals scored by your team and are unmodified by goals, shots or chances against your team. In Laine's case, points miss that before this year he had yet to have had a year above replacement-level defensively, per EvolvingWild's GAR metric.

2. Points are EXTREMELY usage dependent. 6 of Laine's points came on the powerplay, which means a different coaching decision could nix 1/4 of his points production, without him doing anything different. And that's without factoring in how playing with elite teammates and seeing large amounts of icetime can bias the results as well. Laine's scoring rate at 5v5 (he has 13 5v5 points) could this year have produced: 15 (Schiefele's TOI), 11 (Roslovic's TOI), or 5 points (in 16 games, Bourque's TOI). All that changed between these scenarios is TOI, which player's can't directly control. NHL coaches are USUALLY smart about TOI allocation, but I doubt you could find someone who says they're perfect. No reason to punish a player for their role. And that's before accounting for teammate impacts (spoiler alert, they're pretty big).

3. Points are VERY luck-dependent. Shooting percentage is one of the most volatile stats in the NHL and forms a huge part of goal numbers, (and goals aren't even the least
predictive part of points, secondary assists have even more variance, to the point where they are essentially useless in skater evaluation). In Laine's case, the 20-point drop he experienced from 17-18 to 18-19 is entirely explained by his shooting percentage dropping by 6 percentage points (from 18% to 12%) and by his secondary assists falling from 14 to 3 (11 points right there). He wasn't really playing differently, but his points were way worse. Not really what you want from a stat.

Points work better when restricted to primary points (goals+primary assists) and used as a rate (e.g. P1/60). Even then, there's an argument to be made that advancements in regression models like EvolvingWild's RAPMs and Micah McCurdy's Magnus 2 more firmly measure individual offence by accounting for things like teammates, competition, score effects, etc. While using them in concert makes sense, it can lead to a tendency to double count offence, especially when using something like GAR, which is based off of the RAPMs.

Stop using unmodified points. Please. Use better stats.

You’re the one that made the claim he is overrated. Kinda on you to prove he is. The guy isn’t an offensive defenseman. He is a two way defenseman. He has more defensive zone starts than offensive zone starts every year. They don’t typically put offensive defensemen (like Schultz who gets over 55% offensive zone starts every year) in defensive zone starts that often. Like I said JOP not Addison have a proven track record. The pens go with guys that are at least somewhat proven. If that wasn’t the case, they’d have never gotten Gudbranson. Marino wouldn’t be up here and wasn’t thought to be up here to take Guddys spot without an amazing training camp and preseason. And 2/3 of the options you said are left handed. The pens don’t like putting players on their off hand on defense cause they tend to be dumpster fires. Especially Jj.
Nothing I’ve said has been proven wrong. Everything you’ve said actually has been proven wrong. You keep claiming that a guy that gets the majority of his starts in the defensive zone is somehow an offensive defenseman.
Exactly...look at petterson. That trade was exactly what this trade is. A buy low/sell low trade. Trading a forward that didn’t fit in here for a defenseman that didn’t fit in there with similar cap hits. Look how brilliantly that turned out for the pens. Exactly why this makes sense. Thanks for proving my point ?

I stopped reading after the 1st sentence. Comparing Laine to these players and using his stats is completely irrelevant. The whole point of trading for a guy like Risto is points. He's an offensive dman that plays more of an offensive game than defensive, which is perfectly fine if he was actually producing on offense, which he isn't. My side is why trade for a guy making over 5 mill when theres option internally and the team can use the cap space on other positions of need

I agree with that last sentence 100% ?.
But my whole point is basically, this is a buy low/sell low type of trade.
I mean look at the Pearson for Gudbranson trade last year. Everyone said Gudbranson was an absolute dumpster fire and keeping an overrated Pearson who was always invisible was better. Then Guddy comes here and plays extremely well. He was overpaid for sure, but still played well for the pens. And ended up making it a win for the pens. And Pearson has been solid for Vancouver.

And you made the point he's not overrated, kinda on you to prove he isn't. Youre all over the place man. They got Gud because JR wanted a tougher more physical team. That was his job, and if he did more then thats great. And you talked about amazing training camp. Thats exactly what I said. Why not hold off and see what they can do in training camp, and go from there. Yes they like to keep players in their correct position, but they also aren't afraid to change it up like that did putting Marino with Letang. Why trade for a guy when there are options internally that could work out just as well?

Please read beyond the 2nd sentence: There's good stuff there. Laine isn't being compared to any player discussed in this thread, the whole argument was from a Blackhawks thread about a Debrincat for Laine deal, which is why I used Laine as an example. The actual meat of the argument (points are super heavily dependent on luck and usage, which players can't control, while also saying nothing about defense) stands whether it's Laine or Risto or Phil Kessel or Mikko Koivu.

Amusingly, Risto's driving goals for his team at the best rate of his career, for the first time doing something at an above-average level at 5v5. It isn't real, the shooting will regress and he'll almost certainly return to the Risto we all love or love to hate or love to argue incessantly about on this site at some point, but still. You are correct that Risto sucks, but points are a terrible measure of that suckitude.
You don't acquire Risto, or any player for that matter, so that they'll put up points: you acquire them to help the team put up goals. There are better ways to measure that than points!

Gudbranson was traded for cause they needed a 3rd right handed d and they wanted to get rid of Pearson as he just didn’t work out. It was another buy low/sell low deal that worked out brilliantly. Like you said, we had Jj to make the pens a tougher more physical team.
Because the pens are trying to stay a cup contender. A cup contender doesn’t go into a year unprepared hoping for young players to step up from the start. Sometimes it just happens and sometimes it’s cause it’s out of necessity. If none of them pan out next year, we just lost 2 trade chips. And what happens when Letang gets his typical longer term injury next year cause he’s another year older amongst the others that always get hurt. Now we have no depth.
And why can’t we make this buy low/ sell low trade then trade Schultz for more longer term pieces? This trade gives the pens the ability to not have to shelter a 3rd pairing cause you’re sticking an unproven rookie with JJ, gives them depth for the usual injuries, allows them to get long term assets to help for now and the future for two impending free agents that the pens have no cap room or intentions of re-signing.

Because im pretty sure buffalo is only trading risto for a top 6 winger, which the pens would be stupid to do imo. Chucky doesn't have much value, and the other forwards are solid in their roles. Id rather just let Schultz walk, and finally have a little wiggle room for FA. Trading for Risto doesn't make that happen. And say they do trade for him, and Risto is bad. Now thats another overpaid dman the pens have

With Pittsburgh during the 18-19 season he put up a GAR of -0.1, or about the same as you'd expect any given AHL team's top dman to do at the NHL level. It was a big improvement from his time with the Canucks, but it's not like he could've gotten much worse. He probably felt ok due to his solid defensive play, but he hurt Pittsburgh's offence every bit as badly as he hurt the opposition's. In 7 games in Pittsburgh this year he managed a pretty solid GAR of 0.6 and he's kept it going in Anaheim, but plenty of crummy players have enjoyed brief flashes of effective play followed by regressing hard back to what they'd always been. Pearson, meanwhile, hasn't really changed a ton from his time with the Kings. A little above average on offence and a little below average on D. If he's seemed impressive in Vancouver, that's because Vancouver's depth represents Jim Benning's attempt to redefine the word terrible.

In terms of buy-low sell-low, it's not clear that either player is redeemable by a change of scenery. If anything, joining the Pens might hurt Risto as Letang monopolizes the PP minutes that are Risto's only chance to shine, and while Buffalo is probably more likely to play Galchenyuk at center than most teams, I don't think Galch's talent is salvageable at this point.

Trading for someone and the risk of them being bad is always a risk when trading for a player. Galchenyuk hasn’t been great the last few years.
What wiggle room do you need? It’s not like there is going to be anyone really worth getting in free agency that the pens could afford that would be worth anything.

Crosby, Malkin, Guentzel, Rust, McCann, Tanev, Hornqvist, Kahun, Blueger, Simon, Lafferty, Johnson, and Blandisi are capable of being your 13 forwards. Trade Bjugstad for a pick for 4.1 million in cap space. ZAR trades in this scenario gets another million off. Trade DeSmith for a pick or ahl goalie and there’s another 125k off. And they are replaced by cheaper forwards. The defense is taken care of by Letang, Dumo, Risto, Petterson, JJ, Marino, Riikola, and your choice of Ruhwedel, Trotman, POJ, Addison, etc

Wouldn’t really need anyone in free agency.

So, that D corps you mentioned has combined for a GAR of 76.8 since the start of the 16-17 season (Toronto's corps, for reference, has a total GAR of 88.9). Not exactly a super established group of performers. Making things worse is that 49.4 of that is between just Letang and Dumoulin, with Letang contributing 32 on his own. Risto's actually 3rd in that group by GAR over that timeframe, despite an EV GAR of -0.1. The defense is very much not taken care of by that group, not even close. I also don't get the logic of trading a good player to get cap space when you could just not acquire a terrible contract. Nobody is forcing them to acquire Risto instead of an actually good 5v5 defenceman.

What good player are the pens trading to get Risto? They are trading a guy that hasn’t fit, been bad, and that’s a pending UFA and a dime a dozen bottom 6 that’d be a 4th liner at best if everyone was healthy and much easier to replace than a top 4 RHD.

And as for it not being that great, who in house can we afford that would make it any better. Ruhwedel? A bunch of journeyman ahl players and rookies.

xGA/60, GA/60, etc

The player they're giving up is "hypothetical 5 million dollar UFA defenceman" or "the defenceman they can get for bjugstad after replacing Bjugstad with a 5 million dollar UFA forward". Cap space is helpful, which is why not having the Risto contract is super important. ZAR might also be able to anchor a spot higher in the lineup, he's shown the odd flash of legit talent, and he was originally gonna end up at 1LW instead of Conor Sheary IIRC.

Miles ahead of Blueger is fair but ZAR and Tanev are actually pretty similar by the RAPM xGA at about 1.2-1.4 standard deviations better than average. ZAR brings a LOT more offence to the table, but Tanev arguably makes up a lot of that difference with his ability to draw penalties. Don't use GA to evaluate defence, it's important to isolate out the goaltending.

Cap space is important but any free agent defenseman that’s worth a damn is going to cost a bit of cap and probably want a longer term contract.
All this stuff you guys are saying about Risto was also said about Schultz when the pens traded for him. And that trade was even riskier. Schultz is just a power play specialist, he’s atrocious at even strength, yada yada yada. And look how that trade turned out?