Risto said it's time for him to go?

[In The Buff]

Ive said it before in other Risto threads. Seems like a new one pops up once a week lol. But i see a lot of similarities with how we've handled Risto as we did with Tyler Myers. 

Since Tyler's been gone he's went on to have a pretty decent career.... on the 2nd pairing.

His last season with us he was a -26 +/- & shipped out of town. We probably overused Myers & misused him much in the same way we're doing with Risto. And imo its because we havent had better options. Since he's got here he's been placed into that #1 role... at age 19, & as fans we expect him to succeed in it. And when there's problems we blame him.

You put Risto on the 2nd pairing & improve the team in front of him with players that can score & I believe you have a pretty good physical puck moving 2nd pairing dman.

And imo we don't lose games because of Risto, we lose games because we can't score consistently thruout our lineup. Until we improve in that area we as fans are just gonna go around in circles with this stuff.

[freester]

I’m still not convinced on metrics. If Ristos metric is lousy with buffalo and is traded to Tampa and the metric remains the same than I’ll be convinced. 

[Stoner]

6 hours ago, IKnowPhysics said:

Doesn't factor the exorbitant QoC he's been saddled with.

I have noticed he has trouble moving to his right.

6 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

Risto is big, strong, nasty, and can shoot the puck very hard. And he was physically pro ready at a young age. He is also dumb as a box of rocks.

In point of fact, it's gotta be more than that. Ray Borque was said to be quite a cement head. But on the ice, he was a bright bulb, a sharp knife.

Risto's sample size is plenty big. He has a failing grade in hockey IQ. Bottom 10% in all of pro hockey, I'd wager. Not just the NHL.

As much as anything, this reflects poorly on Kevin Dineen (sp), who was frickin' in love with the guy. The BB&G video leaves no doubt on the subject: 

 

Time plays tricks on you. It feels to me like Risto predates Terry. Maybe this is the draft where they asked Terry if he wanted to be "tougher to play against."

[Tondas]

My 2 complaints with Risto are:

1.  He doesn't utilize his defensive partner at all well.  When he should reverse the puck, he doesn't, preferring to power through and try to wheel it out.  His play D-to-D behind the net is poor.

2.  His first pass is rarely a pass but a laser ringed around the boards.  That more often than not results in a stalemate with the puck in our forwards skates and makes it tough to get it out, let alone get a rush going.

Oh, and an additional number 3.  Get a new frickin' stick made of steel!

I'm ambivalent whether to keep him or trade him.  But the return has to be right in a trade because he has value.

 

[North Buffalo]

He needs to move puck faster in D zone and put on the tape of breaking forwards.  Seems confused on breakouts. Im ok with trading if Sabres can find a center and a young puck moving D a la Montour. But would rather move Bogo... Hoping Borgen and Pilut step up and Laaksonen goes to Amerks 

Edited March 21, 2019 by North Buffalo

[That Aud Smell]

4 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Time plays tricks on you. It feels to me like Risto predates Terry. Maybe this is the draft where they asked Terry if he wanted to be "tougher to play against."

It absolutely was that draft. My memory was foggy though. I thought Dineen asked that question of Pegula in re Risto. Not so. That came up when Zadorov was available. It’s in the clip.

[Brawndo]

6 hours ago, #freejame said:

Does playing with Dahlin improve Risto’s metrics? I would think that Dahlin would be facing greater competition playing with Risto, hence the worse metrics. 

Likewise, does the top line take more defensive zones starts with Risto on the ice than without him?

I’m still not sure where I stand on Risto. I think he suffers from poor usage, but someone has to log those minutes and he’s the best suited for it. I would like to see him play with more support before having to decide, but I don’t think that’s a luxury that I will be getting.

Actually both are worse with each other.

The Top Line gets more O Zone Starts by far with him, but their overall Corsi For Drops, their goals Against increases and their goals for decreases.

Also Friedman mentioned that around the league, the eyetest crowd is starting to see what the analytics crowd has been saying about Risto for the past few seasons 

[Pimlach]

I’m not much of analytics guy but Risto does not pass the eyeball test either.   He is error prone, he misses opportunities to clear the net, he sometimes hits at the wrong time taking dumb penalties.   I want to like him.  I want to believe in him.  I am just running out of patience with hm. 

While some of his bad stats are related to minutes played I don’t think he deserves the minutes he gets, his numbers say he does not.

He is a number 3 pair on a good winning team, a 2 on most teams, and a 1 on a perennial bottom feeding team such as the Sabres.  

[matter2003]

7 hours ago, Kruppstahl said:

Risto is terrible.  

Montour isn't much better and comes from the same sort of mold.

If indeed there is solid trade value for Risto, I'd like to see him moved this off-season as well.

However, that move, in isolation, will do very little to improve things. But it it could be part of a number of moves that start to move the needle around here.  Firing Housley would be another; firing Botterill would be another.  Turning over half the lineup would be another.

 

 

 

 

 

Not exactly true, Montour is a positive relative Corsi For player in every year except his rookie year.  What's more impressive is that he has done it even the last 2 years with Anaheim where he had more defensive zone starts than offensive zone starts. Risto is mostly a terrible possession driver while Montour is a positive possession driver.  

[matter2003]

10 hours ago, Ross Rhea said:

Interesting there is the huge disparity between Ristos and EK offense and defensive zone starts. Seems the one year where their zone starts were close their other numbers were close. Wonder what EK corsi would be if he had d zone starts comparative to Ristos and vice versa.

Well,  here is the problem with this argument. Even when controlling for Offensive zone versus Defensive Zone starts, Risto is not good in comparison to other NHL defensemen, ranking 47th(-2.9% Relative Corsi For %) of 88 Dmen in the NHL who have Defensive Zone Start % of 52% or higher and have played more than 25 games this season.

So you might argue it's because the Sabres are a bad team.  Except about 15-20 players ahead of him are on bad teams as well.

You then might argue it's because he is young, only 24 years old. Except the #1 Dman in relative Corsi For % for Defensemen who have high D Zone Start % and have played more than 25 games is only 21(Filip Hronek). He also plays for Detroit, a team much worse than us. Again, about 15-20 Dmen ahead of him are 24 or younger. Some of these players play for bad teams as well such as New Jersey, Detroit, NYR, and Los Angeles.

You then might argue it's because he plays so many minutes. Except 25 Dmen ahead of him play 20+ minutes a night as well.

When you factor in all positions(not including goalies obviously) who have played more than 25 games with 52% or higher defensive zone starts, Risto comes in 152nd out of 248. Evan Rodriguez, who has over 60% defensive zone starts, 6% higher than Risto's 54% is a +1.9% Relative Corsi For%. Zemgus and Larsson, who both are in the mid 60% for Defensive Zone Start % are -0.7 and -1.0 respectively which is fairly good considering they are 10-12% higher than Risto in defensive zone start percentage and are still much higher than him.

Basically there are no real excuses left to give for why Risto sucks so bad in terms of possession metrics. He just sucks at this, period. No matter how you slice it or how you want to try and find "yeah buts", there are really none to be found.

 

Edited March 22, 2019 by matter2003

[PerreaultForever]

Corsi or not, I think he will be traded and it's likely to Tampa in a move that helps them with their cap.

Now how about a fantasy scenario where we trade him to fix our 2C problem and then turn around and sign Karlsson to take Risto's spot and full Swede our blueline. Just a thought, but whatever happens if we trade Risto this team could look radically different next year.

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

9 hours ago, North Buffalo said:

He needs to move puck faster in D zone and put on the tape of breaking forwards.  Seems confused on breakouts. Im ok with trading if Sabres can find a center and a young puck moving D a la Montour. But would rather move Bogo... Hoping Borgen and Pilut step up and Laaksonen goes to Amerks 

Don't expect Laaksomem for a couple years, he signed a 3yr deal in SHL  through the 2020-21 season.

[Pimlach]

14 hours ago, freester said:

I’m still not convinced on metrics. If Ristos metric is lousy with buffalo and is traded to Tampa and the metric remains the same than I’ll be convinced. 

That won’t happen because the teams are miles apart in play.  His metrics with Tampa will be better, where will he rank on that team is the better question.  With Tampa he is a 2nd pairing, maybe 3rd if he starts getting sloppy.   

 

 

[freester]

5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Corsi or not, I think he will be traded and it's likely to Tampa in a move that helps them with their cap.

Now how about a fantasy scenario where we trade him to fix our 2C problem and then turn around and sign Karlsson to take Risto's spot and full Swede our blueline. Just a thought, but whatever happens if we trade Risto this team could look radically different next year.

If Corsi  is so reliable, why would Tampa's GM (who is much more competent than our GM) want to trade for Risto?

[That Aud Smell]

10 hours ago, Brawndo said:

Also Friedman mentioned that around the league, the eyetest crowd is starting to see what the analytics crowd has been saying about Risto for the past few seasons 

Amazing how that works.

9 hours ago, Pimlach said:

He is a number 3 pair on a good winning team, a 2 on most teams, and a 1 on a perennial bottom feeding team such as the Sabres.  

I think I misread this as saying he's a #3D on a good winning team. I think you're saying he's a 5/6 on a good winning team and a 3/4 on a lot of teams. And I agree with that.

11 minutes ago, freester said:

If Corsi  is so reliable, why would Tampa's GM (who is much more competent than our GM) want to trade for Risto?

I think we should be mindful that basic Corsi/Fenwick are just the tip of the #fancystats iceberg. I've read several times, in essence, that the way NHL teams deep-dive on this stuff makes Corsi/Fenwick look like addition and subtraction, while the proprietary stuff is more like calculus.

[PerreaultForever]

18 hours ago, freester said:

If Corsi  is so reliable, why would Tampa's GM (who is much more competent than our GM) want to trade for Risto?

Easy, because they wouldn't use him as a 1-2 D he'd be a 3-4 and he adds a little more grit than they have. Risto would be a great 3-4 guy here too. That's what he is, a situation not totally unlike what happened with Myers. It wouldn't be a deal so much to get him from their perspective but a way for them to get better control on their rising cap issues. The player(s) coming back would have to be players with cap burdens or soon to be cap burdens. 

[Trettioåtta]

On 3/22/2019 at 2:54 AM, Pimlach said:

I’m not much of analytics guy but Risto does not pass the eyeball test either.   He is error prone, he misses opportunities to clear the net, he sometimes hits at the wrong time taking dumb penalties.   I want to like him.  I want to believe in him.  I am just running out of patience with hm. 

While some of his bad stats are related to minutes played I don’t think he deserves the minutes he gets, his numbers say he does not.

He is a number 3 pair on a good winning team, a 2 on most teams, and a 1 on a perennial bottom feeding team such as the Sabres.  

Risto is not a third pairing guy even on a good team. At worst he is a number 4, but more like a number 3 on a good team. 

Risto's mistakes stand out in part because he is played so much

[freester]

5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Easy, because they wouldn't use him as a 1-2 D he'd be a 3-4 and he adds a little more grit than they have. Risto would be a great 3-4 guy here too. That's what he is, a situation not totally unlike what happened with Myers. It wouldn't be a deal so much to get him from their perspective but a way for them to get better control on their rising cap issues. The player(s) coming back would have to be players with cap burdens or soon to be cap burdens. 

So you’re saying we give up a quality player for some cap dumps?  Sounds like the ROR trade.  Bots will jump at this underwhelming offer. We are doomed.  

[Torpedo Forecheck]

My eyeball test tells me his play has alarmingly fallen off. There were times during November and December when he looked like a real horse and was playing to his potential.

[Weave]

6 minutes ago, Torpedo Forecheck said:

My eyeball test tells me his play has alarmingly fallen off. There were times during November and December when he looked like a real horse and was playing to his potential.

This is my take as well.  And it seems to be a pattern with him.  He has stretches early in the season where he is aggressive and plays with  real mean streak, and he's very effective during those times.  But that play always seems to fade and doesn't really come back except for glimpses here and there.

[Torpedo Forecheck]

5 minutes ago, Weave said:

This is my take as well.  And it seems to be a pattern with him.  He has stretches early in the season where he is aggressive and plays with  real mean streak, and he's very effective during those times.  But that play always seems to fade and doesn't really come back except for glimpses here and there.

Don't know the guy, don't need the stats to tell me that he has all the physical attributes. By deduction the mental aspects of the game have to be the issue. When that is the case it is unlikely ever to be resolved in Buffalo under the current regime. Pretty obvious he needs to be moved. And, I was a big fan as I thought he had finally figured it out earlier in the season.

[Ross Rhea]

3 hours ago, Torpedo Forecheck said:

My eyeball test tells me his play has alarmingly fallen off. There were times during November and December when he looked like a real horse and was playing to his potential.

Sounds like a case of being way overused early in the season by bad coaches. 4 crap coaches and tons of losing in his 6 years obviously have taken it's toll on Risto, but yes let's keep piling on because he is the problem. 

[Torpedo Forecheck]

1 hour ago, Ross Rhea said:

Sounds like a case of being way overused early in the season by bad coaches. 4 crap coaches and tons of losing in his 6 years obviously have taken it's toll on Risto, but yes let's keep piling on because he is the problem. 

Not piling on as I said I'm a fan of his physical attributes. However, he may not get over the hump here in Buffalo. And, the question was about trading him this summer. Likely best for all concerned...unless..unless...the coach is replaced by someone who can get the best out of Risto.

Edited March 23, 2019 by Torpedo Forecheck

[Pimlach]

3 hours ago, Ross Rhea said:

Sounds like a case of being way overused early in the season by bad coaches. 4 crap coaches and tons of losing in his 6 years obviously have taken it's toll on Risto, but yes let's keep piling on because he is the problem. 

No one is piling on.  The poor coaching thing is just not true, Ristolainen now is the same as he was with Bylsma.  Housley seemed to know how to coach defense in Nashville.  

I want to see Risto improve.  Believe me I do.  The guy just makes tons of mistakes and he gave up on his offensive zone play months ago.   I’m also tired of the too many minutes excuse. I think we have good enough defenseman right now to move Risto to a third pairing, cut his minutes to 16-17 per game.   Maybe he can focus better with less responsibility   

If Bogo and McCabe are healthy I put them 1 and 2 , ahead of Risto, for Right Shooting defensemen.   Unfortunately they are not. 

[PerreaultForever]

9 hours ago, freester said:

So you’re saying we give up a quality player for some cap dumps?  Sounds like the ROR trade.  Bots will jump at this underwhelming offer. We are doomed.  

No, I'm saying they have too many good players with pricey contracts already and they have younger guys who are going to want big contracts and they cannot keep them all. Not talking Moulsons and Okposos here, good players. No idea who they are willing to move and want to keep but they cannot keep them all.