{"id":483647,"date":"2026-03-03T23:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/483647\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T23:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:09:13","slug":"sabres-interested-in-rasmus-ristolainen-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/483647\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres Interested In Rasmus Ristolainen \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sabres have been connected to the defense market<\/a> this spring, preferably a right-shot name, as they already have an excess of high-end left-shot options. They haven\u2019t been connected to many specific names yet, though. That changed today as Anthony Di Marco of Daily Faceoff<\/a> reports the Sabres are \u201cactively in\u201d pursuit of a reunion with Flyers defenseman\u00a0Rasmus Ristolainen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ristolainen, the eighth overall pick back in 2013 who struggled for years in extended deployment with Buffalo, has emerged as a much more stable option in sheltered minutes since being traded to the Flyers five years ago. The past two years, though, he\u2019s back to averaging over 20 minutes per game and has largely kept up the improvements in his defensive game. He\u2019s only made 23 appearances this season due to a lengthy recovery from triceps surgery, recording a 1-5\u20136 scoring line with a -3 rating. His 20:33 average time on ice is his highest since 2021-22, posting a 47.8% Corsi For share and 53.4% expected goals share at even strength.<\/p>\n

His strong possession-quality numbers throughout most of his tenure in Philly would be a massively valuable addition to the Sabres if he keeps them up on a Buffalo roster with its best chance at a postseason berth since before Ristolainen was even drafted.\u00a0 Their entire top four group is comprised of lefties at the moment. Their top right-shot option, Michael Kesselring<\/a>, was expected to fill minutes higher up in the lineup after being acquired from the Mammoth last summer. He has been a virtual non-factor this season, though, mostly because of a rash of injuries limiting him to 27 games.<\/p>\n

Incorporating Ristolainen\u2019s full $5.1MM cap hit through next season could be a problem for Buffalo general manager Jarmo Kek\u00e4lainen, who\u2019s armed with over $14MM in cap space for next season but needs to reserve all of it for new deals for Alex Tuch<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Zach Benson<\/a>. That would either force him to move out a significant salary in the deal, which would likely require an even steeper acquisition price to convince the Flyers to take on an undesirable deal, or to pay a similar premium for Philly to retain a significant chunk of his salary.<\/p>\n

Philly\u2019s base-level ask is comparable to what the Bruins netted for\u00a0Brandon Carlo<\/a>\u00a0at last year\u2019s deadline \u2013 a first-round pick, a mid-round pick, and a rather high-end forward prospect. The Sabres are certainly equipped with the assets to make that work \u2013\u00a0Anton Wahlberg<\/a>\u00a0fits a similar niche\/value range to what\u00a0Fraser Minten<\/a>\u00a0held for the Maple Leafs in that Carlo deal \u2013 and Boston retained 15% of Carlo\u2019s salary in that trade. The Sabres would need near max retention to make Ristolainen\u2019s salary work for next season, though, assuming they can\u2019t find a taker for a bloated cap hit like\u00a0Jordan Greenway<\/a>\u2018s $4MM or\u00a0Conor Timmins<\/a>\u2018 $2.2MM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sabres have been connected to the defense market this spring, preferably a right-shot name, as they already…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[229,5,56,4526],"class_list":{"0":"post-483647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-buffalo-sabres","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","11":"tag-rasmus-ristolainen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116167767923643699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}