Instant Analysis: Ristolainen Signs Five-Year Extension

The Philadelphia Flyers announced on Thursday morning that they have signed 27-year-old defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen to a five-year contract extension. The deal preempts unrestricted free agency for Ristolainen this summer.

The new contract will kick in for the 2022-23 season and run through the 2026-27 season. It carries a $5.1 million average annual value (AAV) on the salary cap. Ristolainen's soon-to-expire deal, signed with the Buffalo Sabres on Oct. 11, 2016, carries a $5.4 million cap hit.
"I'm very happy and I really wanted to stay. It's a great feeling to have it done before the deadline," Ristolainen said. "I love this city. I love the fans. I love my teammates and I want to be here when we turn it around next year."
If Ristolainen had not signed the extension ahead of the NHL's upcoming trade deadline on March 21, he most likely would have been traded as a rental to another team and then become an unrestricted free agent this summer.
With many NHL clubs crunched for salary cap space due to the meager expansion of the cap ceiling the last few years, there is less liquidity in the system than there was back when Ristolainen signed the six-year extension in Buffalo. There has been a trend around the league for more players to trade off a certain amount of AAV but make it up on the other side through a lengthier term.
That's what happened with Ristolainen. He accepted a $300,000 cut in annual salary in exchange for a fifth year on the deal that brought the total value to $25.5 million. He might have done better in terms of AAV on the open market (perhaps as high as $6 million AAV) over a shorter term such as a four-year deal (which would have made the total value $24.0 million at a $6 million AAV).
"Rasmus is an important part of our team and we are very happy to have him on our blue line for the next five years. He is committed to being a Flyer and brings a consistent physical presence to our team," said Chuck Fletcher, the Flyers' president of hockey operations and general manager.
Ristolainen is a divisive player. By publicly available analytics -- including expected goals against, high-danger chances when on-ice, and Corsi/Fenwick numbers -- he has been under water on an annual basis throughout his career. However, within the NHL pro scouting community, among coaches and fellow players (both teammates and opposing players), Ristolainen is considered an asset to his team.
"Coming in, you knew he was a heavy player," teammate Justin Braun said of the 6-foot-4, 221-pound Finn. "He brings that physical presence and compete level every night. He has the [necessary] work ethic and he can bring other guys into the battle."
Back on July 23 -- the same day the Flyers acquired Ristolainen from Buffalo -- Danny Briere was a guest on a live edition of the Flyers Daily Podcast. Briere, who has since been promoted to the role of special assistant to general manager Fletcher, said that every team needs a couple players like Ristolainen in the mix.
"He's put up some points in the NHL but, to be honest, his physical game is his biggest value. Our guys hated playing against him because he's relentless and he's big and strong. The punishment adds up. I can tell you that I loved having someone like that on our team when I played. In Philly, I played with Derian Hatcher, for example. He battled every game, every shift. Hatch was very hard to play against and was one of those guys who really stepped up in big games, too. I think Ristolainen is the same way," Briere said.
Ristolainen is second among NHL defenseman in credited hits this season with 182 in 50 games played. He trails only former Flyers blueliner Radko Gudas (now with Florida). The big Finn has also blocked 92 shots (identical to Edmonton's Darnell Nurse and Montreal's David Savard, three less than Pittsburgh's Kris Letang in four fewer games played).
"That's the key with Rasmus: he's all in on being a Flyer," said Flyers head coach Mike Yeo. "He'll hit. He'll block shots. He plays for his teammates. He's a big guy but he's also pretty good up-ice, too."
As a member of the Sabres, Ristolainen was a first-unit power play regular for much of his career until after the team selected Rasmus Dahlin with the first overall pick of the 2018 Entry Draft. Often deployed as a netfront forward on power plays, Ristolainen posted four straight seasons with 41 to 45 points between 2015-16 and 2018-19.
With the Flyers, Ristolainen has had a lesser role in terms of offensive expectations. Recently, however, he has been used on the second power play unit in addition to his second-pairing role at 5-on-5 and duties on the penalty kill.
It took several months for Ristolainen and regular partner Travis Saheim to develop chemistry. Since mid-December, however, they have figured out how to work together more effectively.
"I think we complement each other well," Sanheim said. "We play a little bit different style of game and just the way his presence is on the ice kind of opens it up for me a little bit and allows me to do what I do best and use my skating and vice-versa. I'm sure that allows him to play more freely as well."
For his part, Ristolainen has come to equally enjoy playing alongside Sanheim. During his media availability on Thursday to discuss the contract extension, Ristolainen pointed to the on-ice rapport he's developed with Sanheim as one of the reasons why it was "a pretty easy decision" to stay with the Flyers rather than go elsewhere as a rental and test the open market.
"He's the type of player I could play with the rest of my career as a D pair," Ristolainen said of Sanheim. "I think it's already been good.... I hope we stay together, we play together and he's a player I could play with forever."
Dating back to Dec. 6, which was Yeo's first game as interim head coach, the Flyers have played 35 games. It's no secret that wins have been scarce for the team (10-19-6 record, with 125 goals against and 93 goals scored). However, in and of itself, the Sanheim pairing with Ristolainen has been a bright spot.
Over that span, Sanheim has logged 22:46 of ice time, posted 17 points (4g, 13a) without the benefit of power play time and is a traditional +1 at even strength. Ristolainen has averaged 21:43 TOI and chipped in 10 points offensively (1g, 9a) with a traditional minus-one rating.
This month, Ristolainen has actually seen a bump in his ice time while Ivan Provorov has had a slight reduction of his TOI in several games. For the month of March to date (five games), Ristolainen has led the Flyers with 23:45 of ice time. Provorov is at 23:39 while Sanheim is at 22:49. Again, power play ice time is a factor in this.
Sanheim, 25, has one season remaining on his contract ($4.675 AAV). He can become an unrestricted agent in the summer of 2023. If signed to an extension this summer or next season, the deal would not start until the 2023-24 season. This will ultimately be Sanheim's own decision to make in conjunction with his agent.
The Ristolainen extension should not, and and of itself, affect Sanheim's situation from a cap-planning perspective. Actually, Ristolainen's slightly reduced AAV on the new deal opens $300,000 of added cap space toward future planning.
The bigger questions for the Flyers moving forward are in the following:
1) Avoiding a repeat of the disproportionately negative trickle-down effect that Ryan Ellis' nearly season-long injury absence has had on the Flyers' blueline. The pairs became unbalanced again in the same fashion that the retirement of Matt Niskanen after the 2019-20 season had a negative effect over and above the player's singular value. Presently, the Ristolainen extension just maintains the status quo on a blueline that has come up short of expectations on the whole and in terms of its current depth.
2) With the team looking to become faster, more naturally skilled and harder to play against in terms of the mix of forwards, there is much work to be done both in terms of cap-planning and roster construction. There are presently a lot of questions about how this will be accomplished. The $300,000 of cap savings on Ristolainen expiring contract vs. his new deal does not move the needle much at all on the cap-management front.
3) Ristolainen was re-signed in part because there's a lot of uncertainty elsewhere on the blueline.
Sanheim, as noted, is one season away from UFA status. Braun is an unrestricted free agent this summer, and could be on the move as a rental player by the trade deadline.
Provorov, after a strong start to the season (including during the first few weeks after Ellis went down), has been unable to rise above teamwide issues. For the most part, the Flyers No. 1 defenseman has had his second straight inconsistent campaign compared to the very high expectations and demands on him in that role.
Ellis is a very capable all-around defenseman and an asset in triggering breakouts and producing points. Unfortunately, the player has a lengthy injury history. The Flyers placed a lot of reliance on Ellis being healthy enough to play most of the games this season. When the opposite happened, many things collapsed around it.
Ellis' season-long lower-body issue is a different type of injury than he's ever dealt with before in his career, and the long-term prognosis is that it's not career-threatening. However, if it hasn't been one type of injury with Ellis in recent years, it's been something else. The Flyers still have a very high degree of reliance on Ellis not only making a full recovery for next season but in avoiding long-term absences in general. Until he shows an ability to get -- and stay -- healthy enough to play regularly come next season, this will be a worrisome issue.
The 2021-22 season may have gone differently on the blueline if Provorov and Ellis were together all year and Braun could have played on the third pair (rather than the first) to be a stabilizer at five-on-five and assist on the penalty kill. Braun showed this season that he's still a capable and reliable NHL starter. He's just not a bonafide top-pairing guy on a full-time basis.
Keith Yandle, who has struggled most of the season beyond the first six games, appears to be nearing the end of his NHL career. Cam York has had a just-OK season in the American Hockey League but has shown hints of his NHL-level promise as both a puck-mover and offensively-skilled blueliner. Egor Zamula may be ready to move up at some point to push for an NHL spot but that is unlikely to happen by the end of the current season.
Nick Seeler, who has dressed in 37 of the Flyers' 57 games this season, is ideally deployed as a capable depth defenseman who can fill-in as needed for stretches of a few games here and there on a third pairing. He has played a higher percentage of the games than initially planned. Kevin Connauton, claimed off waivers from Florida, has dressed in 14 games for the Flyers. There were a couple games where both Seeler and Connauton were in the starting lineup.
All of these factors have overshadowed the chemistry that has developed on the second pairing between Sanheim and Ristolainen. The extension for Ristolainen removes one of the questions surrounding the Flyers' blueline makeup and top-to-bottom fit beyond this season.
The other issues still exist. It will take a lot of hard work, sharp planning in roster adjustments and a touch of good fortune player health-wise, too, in order to resolve successfully over the next year.