The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 408: The Big Guy

Episode Date: July 24, 2021

Charlie O'Connor joins the show to discuss Philadelphia's busy offseason, their pursuit of improving defensively, and the seemingly polar opposite evaluations they've made in acquiring Ryan Ellis and Rasmus Ristolainen. Topics include: The Flyers goal suppression issues last year How much of that was on defense vs. goaltending The relatively small acquisition cost for Ryan Ellis The stunning price they paid for Rasmus Ristolainen What they saw in him, and what they can get out of him The way the league views and values Ristolainen The horrible underlying numbers throughout his career Why the eye test shouldn't inspire any confidence Having tools vs. being able to use them effectively Environment, role, and results If you haven't yet, please go take a minute to leave a rating and review for the show. If you're busy and don't feel like writing anything, it's all good. Just hit the 5-star button. Each one counts, and helps us out. If you're feeling extra generous, you can also leave a note about why you recommend people check the show out. Thanks for the help! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Welcome to the Hockey-PedioCast. My name is Dimitri Philpovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Charlie O'Connor. Charlie, what's going on? Quite a lot, actually, especially over the past week, and given that I cover of the Philadelphia Flyers. So it hasn't been uneventful. I'll give you that. It certainly hasn't.

We had to do this trade analysis reaction pod. We're doing it the morning after the big Rasmus, the line and trade. But I wanted to give you a night to have a couple drinks to let it marinate, to let it digest fully. And we're going to discuss it now. And hopefully people will listen at some point on Saturday here, either during or after the draft. And the flyers won't do anything other crazy stuff in the meantime. So we'll see how it goes.

But it was a big trade. It was a big day in the NHL for, for big defensemen with named cache and Rassum Stalinin certainly fits into that tier along with Oliver, Reklin-Larsin and Seth Jones, as we saw moved as well. And I don't know, like, where do you want to start this one? Because obviously you having covered this Flyers team for for many years now in various capacities, you've seen quite a bit of things. And you've certainly see them, you know, make a questionable value moves based on players that they just seem to be infatuated with. And you've covered various you know, notable, especially like anti-analytic players in terms of their outputs over the years.

But this kind of feels like it's a new high or a new low depending on the way you want to frame it. Yeah. The big thing I just keep coming back to with this trade is that it's a huge risk. It's a huge risk. And, you know, I'm not ruling out the possibility that the flyers could be right. and given the usage they plan to use Rassus Rist-Lyline and N, that he could be good or fine or whatever, but it's a big risk because you're basically,

I tweeted this out yesterday last night, that you're trading for a theoretical. You're trading for the theory that Rassus Rist-A-Lyne in a different place given different usage will be better than he's been the entirety of the rest of his career. And if they're right, That would be an amazing story. And I'd love to be the one to write about it and tell it.

But it's a pretty big leap of faith. And it's not like they gave up, you know, a fourth round pick to take that leap of faith. They gave up a first round pick and a second round pick to take a leap of faith on a guy who, you know, through his entirety of his career in Buffalo has never been a good even strength defenseman. So we'll see what happens. Yeah. Well, let's kind of start at the beginning and work away through because I actually haven't had a chance so far this off season to discuss any. anything that the flyers have really done here in the podcast dating back to the Ryan Ellis trade.

And so I think it all starts, I guess, with the way, the lasting impression of the 2021 season in Philadelphia, right? The inescapable stat, a lot of things obviously went wrong and they didn't live up to the expectations they had based on the way they had ended the previous season. But the 3.5 nearly goals against per hour that was the league worst rate was something that is really hard to overcome for anyone. Clearly, they were unable to overcome that themselves. And so I just, I knew that it was bad defensively in terms of the goal suppression. And they obviously had a couple very notable blowups against the Rangers in particular that everyone will remember. But it's, it's sort of remarkable to me considering the quality of some of the teams we saw defensively throughout

the league, whether it was teams like the ducks or the Canucks or the Blackhawks or any number of sort of bottom dwellers that you could list that the fires of all those teams gave up the most goals. To me, that that is a remarkable stat because I knew it was bad, but when I like kind of did some research for this, I didn't realize that it had actually been that bad. It was pretty rough to watch. And in fairness to the Blue Line Corps, which obviously Chuck Fletcher identified as something that he needed to shake up, you know, you mentioned the Ryan Ellis trade. Obviously, they traded for wresters for the line and yesterday. It wasn't all on the defenseman. You know, they certainly could have played better. Ivan Perrault did not take a step, you know,

the wake of what was a really solid, you know, 2019, 2020 season alongside Matt Niskenen. Matt Niskenin surprisingly retired and Ivan Proveroff took a step back. I mean, at the very least he stagnated if you account, maybe if you account for, you know, quality of partner, but I would say he took a step back. Travis Sandheim got PTO to death, to use the name of the podcast. Phil Myers took a big step back. And obviously he's no longer on the team. He was shipped out in the Ellis trade.

and it just those were I think the three guys they were depending on the most going into last year because they didn't replace Matt Niskenen and it just kind of blew up in their face. But as I said, it wasn't just a defense. You know, there were there were definitely stretches where the defense was not playing poorly. It was that the goaltending was playing terribly. And the problem with that is that it sort of just becomes a spiral. You know, the goaltending plays poorly. so the defense tried to do more and then they play poorly and then they don't bail out the

goaltending and then it just turns into his death spiral and that's more or less what happened. You know, Carter Hart obviously was a mess, particularly in March. The schedule was demanding because they had their COVID pause. They had to cram more games in. So they had no time really to give Carter Hart a break. So they just kept having to throw him out there and his head wasn't right. His game wasn't right. And he just kept getting clobbered.

And you couldn't use Brian Elliott too much because he was 35 going on 36 and he was going to wear down and he ended up wearing down anyway and then playing about as bad as Hart was playing. And then you had the defense that was a mess. And the forwards, you know, especially in the first couple months of the year, and this actually didn't really show up on the score sheet as much because the Flyers actually were getting decent goaltending. But the forward core was not doing a good job supporting the defense. You know, Elaine Vino was really rightfully critical of, you know, the defensive effort and the commitment to a two-way play from the forwards, especially in January and into February.

So really it was a team-wide failure, which is why I think the Flyers entered this offseason feeling like they really had to shake things up. I don't think they were ever going to give up on Carter or heart, but they certainly were going to change up the defense. And I do think they also want to shake up the forward core a little bit. Now whether they're going to be able to do that, I don't know. I mean, they've burned a lot of assets so far addressing the defense,

but I think they want to. So, yeah, I mean, all this really does stem from, I agree, the fact that the defense core, not the defense core, just the team defense as a whole last year was just abysmal. And it goes to the entire team, not just the blue line. Well, yeah, that's the thing. I think there were certain instances, certainly where the mistakes were so glaring that just even casually watching, your eyes would gravitate toward them. And that's kind of the thing that you'd remember. But then you look at the in totality, and they were 11th and expected goals. 13th and high danger attempts against,

12th and shots against, in terms of team metrics, and there's like 12th lowest, right? And so those are all kind of middle of the pack and certainly don't equate to a team that gave up as many goals as they did. Then you look at the goaltending. They had an 880, say, percentage as a team, and that'll certainly mess with your bottom line

in terms of the goals against. The sharks were the second worst at 891, remarkably, which is quite a big gap between the two. One full percentage point worse than everybody. And it's crazy because of the 60 goalies with 500 plus minutes, Carter Hart was 60. I think goals they would above expected at minus 24.5. Brian Elliott was 59 right behind him or right ahead of him, I guess, in minus 20.5.

And I think you alluded to this. But with Elliott, now a 36-year-old UFA, it's very easy to sort of distances yourself from it, walk away, address that in free agency with any number of available options that can come in on a timeshare for a reasonable value. you with heart, it's trickier because no one's giving up on him. He's 23 years old in his first two years. He had a 9-17 and a 9-14, including a plus 7.3 goals, say, above expected in year or two. And so with a gole of his age and his pedigree, you're going to give him the benefit of the doubt. And especially for this Flyers organization, it feels like, you know, they're obviously

emotionally invested considering the revolving door they've had it in that and sort of the promise he's shown. And I imagine this offseason they're going to become financially invested in him as well. So it makes it a lot easier to when you kind of factor all that and go, okay, let's address the defense this offseason and make life easier for them and give them a chance to succeed actually moving forward as opposed to making some sort of crazy changes in that. And so from that perspective, it does make sense to me that that would be sort of their mandate for Chuck Fletcher heading into this off season as sort of the one thing this team needed to address most. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing with Hart too, like, look, goalies are weird. there's always the possibility that Carter Hart is beginning his Matt Murray stage where everyone figures him out and he's just bad.

But I still believe in the town. I still believe in the person. You know, Hart was surprisingly forthcoming after the season about the mental challenges of the pandemic and how that impacted him. And, I mean, I think a lot of us can can certainly empathize, you know, with the challenges of everything over the past, you know, year and change and isolation. especially if you live alone. And, you know, when you're when you're Carter hard and you're still a young guy, you're 22 years old and you're going out there and you're just playing way below you've ever played before. And then you go home at night and you just think about it by yourself.

And maybe you go on social media and you read everybody ripping you and you read articles and you just go into this like, like this really dark path. And I think he was down that, especially in March. So that's part the reason why I don't worry. that much about him because to me last season was almost just this like perfect storm of awful that isn't going to be repeated in his case

and I believe in the talent I believe that he's going to work extremely hard this offseason to fix the technical issues in his game which were real. It wasn't just mental I mean he was he was getting beat a lot high glove and that was I think a technical change that he has to adjust but

look the Flyers if they're going to turn this around they were going to have to take leaps of faith on some players on the team. They were going to be able to trade everybody to change everything. And Carter Hard is one of those players that you're just kind of going to have to take a leap of faith on.

You're just going to have to figure, you know what, throw that the last year in the garbage. Let's just assume he's going to be good again next year. And if he's not, we'll deal with it. But you can't give up on a guy that talented. There's another guy, for another example of that is Oscar Limblam. Like, Oscar Limblam did not have a good year last year. but as an organization,

you don't give up on a guy like that considering the fact that it was his first season back from beating cancer and his body was not clearly, you know, fully back to 100% post-treatment. You know the guy's a great guy. You know the character's there.

You know the hockey IQ's there. So you just operate on trust that give him a full off season to train and rebuild his muscle and rebuild his body now that he's a year removed from beating cancer. It'll come back and be the same, you know,

play driving, you know, second, third line quality winger that you had before he was diagnosed with the Ewing sarcoma. So, like, there's some players where you have to take leaps of faith on there's other players who the Flyers clearly decided that, hey, maybe what we saw last year, maybe that's them. You know, maybe Phil Myers isn't, you know, going to develop into a top-air defenseman like they hoped. Maybe Nolan Patrick is just never going to be the guy that they thought they were getting when they drew up to them second overall.

So with the moves the Flyers are making, I think you're seeing which players, they are willing to take the leap of faith on and which players they maybe came out of last season with a different opinion than they had before last season. Every deep playoff run starts with building an amazing team. Doing the same for your business doesn't take a room full of scouts. You just need Indeed. Don't spend hours on multiple job sites

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Do it all today at customink.com. Well, it's interesting you bring those two guys up, and it's a great segue to talk about Ryan Ellis and the first trade they made this off season because I was pretty surprised by just how low the acquisition cost. was considering everything for a player of Ellis's caliber. And I think it was universally sort of agreed upon as a very savvy, reasonable move on their part. Not that Ellis doesn't come with his own set of risks, right? He's turned 30. He's got six years left at $6.25 million left on that deal.

He's missed 20 games each of the past two seasons, or I guess 22 years ago, 21 this past season. He's missed significant time in three of the past four years. But the thing with me, it's really encouraging, is not only that when he's on the ice, he's still got tremendously positive impacts and has one hell of a player and figures, if you do pair him up with Ivan Proverov to get the most out of him as well and really give them an awesome play driving sort of dual threat defense pair. But also it initially signaled to me like, all right, like there's a reason for optimism in terms of direction the flowers are headed in here because they clearly identified this guy who it would have been very easy for the old school conventional hockey type to look at him and be like, no, he's not worth prioritizing. But they clearly. did. They paid a nice price for them, but still not not insignificant in two young pieces and went and got them. And so for me, when I saw that, I was like, all right, this is, this is encouraging. And so I think that's the crazy part for me that the same front office basically in a week can

have these two almost polar opposite sort of thought process, two defensemen, but two wildly different players. Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is wild that in the span of a week, they traded for an analytics darling and Ryan Ellis and then probably the most hated analytics defenseman in hockey right now in Rasmister-Stalining. It's a gigantic discrepancy without a doubt. Yeah, I mean, I love the Ryan Ellis trade. And I'm not a I'm not opposed to the idea of Phil Myers becoming a solid defenseman in the NHL. I think eventually he'll turn into probably a decent second pair guy. But I mean, Ryan Ellis obviously has the upside to be far, far more than that, you know, to be a legitimate top pair borderline number one defenseman in the NHL.

And to get him for, you know, Myers, so obvious upgrade from Myers to Ellis. And then Nolan Patrick, who I believe was going to get traded this offseason. I mean, I think everyone sort of involved, including Chuck Fletcher, obviously. But, I mean, Chuck Fletcher for a long time, I've been a real defender of Nolan Patrick, you know, in conversations I've had with him. But I think everyone involved just sort of got the idea that maybe he needed a change of scenery, that maybe it just wasn't working out in Philadelphia. So I think he was getting moved regardless.

You basically just trade it. You upgrade it from Myers to Ellis. And then you traded a guy who were probably going to ship out anyway because he just wasn't, didn't seem to be happy here. So yeah, I mean, that was a great trade. And people were through the roof. And then they trade for rest for Stalin. And from what I've heard,

based on the conversations I've had with people in and around the flyers, number one, they really, really think. that the Buffalo effect is real. I mean, that's a big part of this, that they really believe that Buffalo just ruins guys. The reason why I'm skeptical of that is because, like, seven, eight years, it's hard to say if that's Buffalo ruining a guy or if it's just that's him. I tend to lean more towards the latter, but I see where they're coming from with,

you know, you see, for example, a guy like Brandon on tour who pretty good in Anaheim, showing potential, gets traded to Buffalo, numbers go in the toilet, gets traded to Florida, and immediately his numbers are really good. And you look at that and you're like, man, what's in the water in Buffalo? Look at a guy like Colin Miller. Great numbers everywhere else goes to Buffalo. Immediately his numbers tank. So I see where they're coming from there. It's just a leap. So I've also heard that like, you know, the Flyers Analytics Department is not, does not share the vitriol that the public sphere has of Rist-Lyin. I don't gather that that's a consensus view in terms of private analytics departments,

but I gather the fly, like, the flyer's analytics department was like walking out of the room when they did this trade. I think they were okay with it based on their preconception of Rist-Lyning the player and what they believe he can be. Again, big risk, but we'll see. say. Well, I will say I think you need to combine the two trades here, including like in terms of the Gossus bear transaction that came before this and then this one in terms of the, the bet they made here just because of the way the cap mechanics work, in my opinion, where

they gave away the second and the seventh to essentially dump what was Gossus bearers, 4.5 or so million. Yeah, for 4.5, two more years. And then, and then obviously they include Robert Hagan in this Rissolitan trade. So it's pretty much the money sort of balances out in terms of they're just sliding, wrist-alining into that spot. And I think by Dom's projection model, they gave away like 10 wins worth of future value or so in terms of all the picks they shed in the process,

which obviously all of those picks are projections in their own right and carry their own risk in terms of nailing them and actually getting a positive NHL value out of them. But it's a pretty hefty price regardless of the player, let alone the fact they are talking about a player with the, resume that Ristelainen has. And so I think this is a great time to just get into it and tiptoeing around it. But I think the debate in terms of the analytics versus the eye test, especially for a player like Ristelainen, is so fascinating to me because analytically, his on-ice metrics have been

uniformly bleak. I think I would love to see some sort of a private company showed me what he's actually done well, because it certainly hasn't translated into any sort of shot expected or actual goal metrics when he's been on the ice, especially at even strength. He's in the third percentile in terms of war for defensemen. He's 12th and even strength offense. 13th and even strength defense. It's been bad. And pretty much it's a lot of red whenever you look at his player cards.

Now, I think you're right. The natural inclination is to give him a pass because of the playing environment, which has admittedly been a house of horrors in his eight years in Buffalo. And it's really tough for anyone to look good in that environment. And we've seen a number of players instantly move to different situations. and thrive and flourish. I'm willing to buy the idea it's plausible that they could get more value out of him, going to Philly, playing with better players, being asked to do less,

and they can get better results out of him. The one argument I have no time for, though, is that this is an analytics versus eye test argument because I've watched a lot of Brassman's just the line. And I just, I have to admit, I do not see why he is beloved by people who think that he does certain things well on the ice. I just don't see it. Like, I've, I can vouch for the fact that I have watched Rasmusselaigne and play probably too much hockey for the Buffalo Sabers over the years.

And it's just, I'm baffled to hear that people have turned this into an analytics or a scientist argument. Yeah. I mean, I get pigeonholed, I think sometimes as like the stat guy, but I watch a lot of hockey and I've watched a lot of wrestlers to align. And because, you know, Rassersersersers to me is a fascinating player. So, of course, when I'm watching a Buffalo Sabers game, I'm going to zero running him. Like, full disclosure. I loved Rastas Ristelainen in his draft year. He was, if you remember, that was the year the Flyers took Samuel Moran.

And I remember wanting Rassas Ristelainen to slip to the flyers so they could take him. Like, he was the guy I wanted in that draft year. So when he got, you know, that was a decade ago. Yeah, it was 2013. We're literally coming up on a decade. We are getting old. But so when he, when he made the NHL, I mean, I made a point to watch him. And, you know, he's 19.

You're like, oh, okay, he doesn't look that great. but he's 19. You know, they've rushed him, whatever. And he gets into his early 20s, and then you're starting to think, okay, like this is sort of the guy he is. And it was very rare when I watched him. It was impressed.

And a lot of it, honestly, boiled down to his work in the defensive zone, which I find, in a word, awful. He just, he just doesn't seem, or at least to me, he never seemed like he really has a plan beyond just like chase the puck. And that might partially be system-oriented,

but like, for example, the concept, the whole concept, I think, in the flyers eyes beyond, beyond Rastas and the line is that he's going to slot it on the second pair. They're going to put him next to Travis Sannheim. And part of that thinking is Travis Sannheim is, in my opinion, a legitimately pretty darn good defenseman. The one thing he doesn't have,

he, for his size, he is not physical at all. He's not, he just, he's not comfortable, you know, throwing his weight around, using his size. He's more of a finesse player. And that obviously rubs, you know, a lot of people the wrong way, particularly in Philadelphia. But so one of their thought process is put wrist the line next to him. Rist the line will do the porch clearing. He'll do the physical stuff, which probably, like that probably makes sense. But another of Travis Stanheim's weak points is that he's gotten better at this,

but he's never been fully comfortable, like, all. off puck instincts in the defensive zone. He's more of a guy with the puck. He's a guy who I think puts up good defensive metrics because his team just has the puck more than the other team, not because he's like this secret defensive stalwart. Well, Rastas Ristelainen, in my mind, has kind of the same problem just in a different way,

like putting himself out of position to hit a guy or just running after the puck and like neglecting to do a switch. These are the kind of things that when I watch him, it's just like face palm moments in the defensive zone. And I don't know how that can work with a Travis Sandheim who also at times, I mean, I've compared Travis Sanheim on multiple occasions to Jake Gardner. Because Jay Gardner was another one of those guys where, you know, in his prime, great play driver, great numbers, you know, in aggregate was great.

But he'd have those moments where they would stick in your head because they'd just be like, Jake, what were you thinking? and Sanheim's the same way, and Restline is the same way. And, you know, again, maybe it's system-oriented. Maybe you put him in a system with more structure, you know, with better coaching, with more stable coaching. Maybe you can coach that out of him. Maybe you can coach him to be a more, a more,

a more structured, simple game in the defensive zone. But again, as I mentioned earlier, that's a risk because he hasn't done it before. So you're betting on him being better in. in a specific area than he's ever been in his career. And if he is, the Flyers look like geniuses that they fixed Rastus Ristelainen. But if he's not, everybody's going to look at the Flyers and be like, everyone saw this coming. How did you not?

Well, I think ironically, anyone that is taking the time right now to dispute his analytics and cite the eye test as a reason to be a believer in the player is either not necessarily watching Ristelan and is kind of hanging on to. to the pedigree of what he was thought to be heading into the league, which is silly, obviously, now because he's 27 with over 500 NHL games and nearly 10,000 5-1-5 minutes to his name, and we need to adjust to what actual results we've seen on the ice from him. But the other for me is it's possible that people are watching Ristelian and are either valuing the wrong things or looking for the wrong things, right?

Because I sent you this after the trade had happened, but I had this like in the back of my head, it's implanted this game that the Flyers and Sabres played. I think it was March 29th this past season. It was during the Sabres losing streak. I think it actually extended it to 18 games where the Flyers fell down three nothing early on and then made a third period come back and eventually won an overtime to extend that losing streak. And in that third period,

it was like the peak wrist-aline in performance for me where he, you could see why people, he pops off the page for people because he was involved in like every play. He was very active. You could like see him doing stuff around the puck on the ice. Looked really big. Of course, moved around pretty well for his size.

But it boils down to for me the problem that he doesn't actually either know how to use any of that stuff effectively or doesn't actually get functional value out of it. Because what he did in the process was he takes the puck around the net and then without even any real forecheck on him, he tries to shoot it off the glass. It gets knocked down by a fly. players player. He chases that player to the boards to try and rub him off the puck. Instead, the puck just winds up going to the front of the net and the flyers have like a two on no for an easy tap in where Ristelan probably should have been. Then he takes a penalty in front of

the net during a battle where he just inexplicably cross-checked someone in the back. And yeah, I guess it's a very physical play. Didn't necessarily lead to any positive outcome for his team there. And then I think it was the last goal where Kuturier basically just doesn't get a stick tied up in front of the net. Ristelan is standing there and looking big. And he's not. And I think he's like trying to slash him and cross-check him, but he doesn't take the stick away and the puck goes into the net. And so for me, that was just a classic example of you kind of look at it two ways. One, oh, the physical tools are there, but ultimately the results aren't there.

And that's kind of the ultimate sort of story of his career for me that the actual tools and talents haven't manifested themselves into anything of value for the Sabres. Yeah, I mean, I've long argued. on podcast, on Twitter. I don't think I really ever put it Ristelining much in articles because he wasn't on the flyers. I cover the flyers. But I mean, I've long argued that people would say about Ristolining

that, well, you can't blame him for being on a bad team. And my argument was one of the reasons why they're a bad team is because they have Rassist Ristolinen on their first pair. And I think the statement I made was that this was before this season, And when they're, because if you remember, there was like some talk from people that like, well, maybe the Sabres will be pretty good this year. They could be. You know, they went out and they got Taylor Hall. Like, they could be fun.

And the statement I made on my podcast was I will start taking the Buffalo Sabres seriously as a playoff team the day that rest of line and isn't on their top pair and not a day sooner. And I hold to that. Now, for the Flyers, I presume he'll be on their second pair. So there's that. But yeah, you know, he's his performance. in Buffalo, it's not, it can't just be chalked up to the team. It can't. And I mean, part of that I put in my breakdown of the trade in my article I did where, you know, yeah, you can make the argument that he's had a lot of bad teammates. And he has. I mean, Buffalo has not been good. But he has had some good

teammates. He has played with Jack Eichael. He has played with Sam Ryanar. He has played with Jeff Skinner, even though Jeff Skinner of Ross. Ryan O'Reilly. Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, great player as well. And, you know, I just looked over the last three years. And all three of those guys, Eichael, Reinhardt, and Skinner all do substantially better when not playing with Rassist the Lina. And it's not, I can't imagine it's a case where, because like, obviously, like, wowies aren't perfect. Like the Witherer Thalue stats, they're not perfect by any means. There's a lot they miss. But it's part of me to imagine that like Jack Eichael only faces off against top lines when he's not backed by Rassistrista Linen. And like, it's Jack Eichael.

Ikele. The other team is throwing out their best players to face off against Jack Eichael whenever they can, regardless of whether Raston Tristan Lion is behind him or not. And if Jack Eichael, an objectively great hockey player is getting outshot, outchanced, and outscored with Rastinstlein behind him. And then when Rassel's Rist the Llein is not behind him, Jack Eichael is helping the Sabres to outchance, out shoot, and outscore the opposition. well, maybe it's because when he's on the ice with wrestlersal Sleinen, the team isn't that good. And if he can drag down Jack Eichael, pretty much can probably drag down anybody?

Yeah, I mean, I guess in an ideal world, as you said, you pair him with Sandheim, you hope that he defers when they have the puck more to Sandheim, who's a good puck carrier, and maybe he can handle more of the transition work, and he just does more of the dirty work, If they seem still set, I think, on trying to get off of James Van Riemzdyke's contract, you know, I think they were hoping that he would be taken by Seattle.

And I think they're either going to try to trade him or Voracek and clear some of that money for future use. And if you move Van Ramesek, maybe you use just the line in as a net front guy on the power play a little bit because I find it hard to believe that he's going to be playing on the point there, especially in the top unit. But that would be interesting. I just keep coming back to, like, for me, it's just any way you slice. It's just such a difficult trait to justify, given the timing, given the set of circumstances. It blows my mind that we'll still see on the details based on the rumored return that the Sabres got more for Ristelainen that they're going to get for Sam Reinhardt, who I think is like 10 times the player of Ristelainen is. I think for the Flyers perspective, it's so like either he does well out of the gate in a small sample.

And because of the acquisition cost you paid, it's very easy to see them convincing themselves into doubling down on it. and investing in him long term with an extension, which would obviously present its own difficulties. Or it goes poorly based on his career trajectory so far, and it winds up being a one-year thing. And at that point, you basically wound up mortgaging two or three very useful assets for a player that you have nothing to ultimately show for it from.

And so I don't even know what the better or worst case scenario is in terms of this working out, whether it's a short-term thing and you've got to bite the bullet as it's on cost, or whether it is kind of this false hope, the leads to a long-term financial commitment, but both seem pretty unappealing and they've kind of boxed themselves into this weird position out with a player who is going to be an unrestricted free agent after this season and has a weird set of incentives for both the team and the organization and the player in terms of like how this is going to shake out.

Yeah, I mean, and that's the that's the rub, right? You know, obviously the best case scenario for the Flyers is if Ristelainen turns his career around plays well, they sign him to, you know, a lucre. deal that he then proceeds to live up to because they fixed wresters for the line. And that's the best case scenario. But you're right. You know, there's multiple ways this could look bad. You know, if he if he doesn't play well and they sign him or I mean, I'm not even ruling this out. I think it's possible they could sign

him before the season because the thing that raises my eyebrows about this move. And I push Chuck Fletcher on it yesterday in his press conference and he kind of, you know, danced around it. But Chuck Fletcher flat out said last week, when we interviewed him, you know, in his like offseason availability, that he would only trade the 13th pick for a long-term solution. And I very much took that to mean that he wasn't going to trade it for a rental. And I also very much took that to be a direct point made about Seth Jones because the flyers were absolutely in on Seth Jones. They had serious talks about him. Seth Jones at the time

was not willing to commit to resigning with Philadelphia beyond this season. So the flyers pulled out of the talks because they were like, We're not going to give up. And granted, they were going to have to give up a lot more than just the 13th overall pick. They were going to have to give up young players. They're going to probably have to give up another first round pick. But their point was, we're not going to give up all that.

You know, we're not going to go up a 13th overall pick for a rental. Well, then they gave up the 13th overall pick for a rental, which leads me to believe that they don't view him as a rental. And I wonder if they're just going to up and sign him a year early, which I think would be a big mistake because in my mind, if you're going to take a risk like this, you have to see how he plays here. Like, you have to because this isn't a guy. Like this isn't Ryan Ellis. This isn't a guy who for years and years and years has delivered strong results. And yeah, you're worried that maybe he might drop off age wise. But this is a guy who's never had strong results anywhere other than the power

play. So if you're going to commit to him, you have to see if he can turn it around here first. and if he doesn't, then you did give up a first round pick for a rental. Granted, in a weak draft, you know, in a weak draft in a very, you know, uncertain draft in terms of evaluation. So I get that, you know, if you're going to take a swing on a guy, you'd give him a first round pick, this is probably the draft to do it. I respect that line of thinking. But still, you end up in a situation where you say you're not going to trade him for a rental,

trade it for a rental. You trade it for a rental. So does that then put you in the situation where, well, now we got to research. signed to justify we gave up the first round pick. And this is why I made the comparison, not player to player, because they've totally different styles of play. Rist-aligning is way more physical, way better on the power play, better physical tools. But this is why I made the comparison, Andrew McDonald, because the flyers were in the exact

same position where they traded for him and they gave up enough assets that they almost felt like, well, we gave up all those assets, we got to re-sign him. And I wonder if they're putting themselves in the same position with Crystal Leyen and where, you know, can they even justify to themselves that he could only be a rental or have they put themselves in the position where like, well, we got to sign him because if we don't sign and then we gave him the first round pick for one year of this guy. And that's scary. I mean, I think the scary thing is clearly the flyers were willing to pay the most. And that's why the Sabers took this offer. many teams, I think, were interested in Ristelainen. They were, yeah. Season by all accounts to varying degrees. And I had honestly, like, I'm rarely surprised in terms of transactional news in this league,

because I've just kind of grown to assume that there's going to be loose cannons out there to do wild stuff. But for me, I had talked myself into the Sabres having really missed the window in terms of getting positive assets for Ristelainen at its point, like two years. years ago, there were a lot of rumblings and I think verified ones that they could have explored a Nikla Eelers trade after a down season for him for Ristelighton. And that obviously would have been a whole run deal for the Sabres back then. But just based on the way things had gone, I was like, all right, with one year left as a UFA, like maybe they could get a depth pick or just basically get some other project back in return. For them to get numerous young draft assets here is a great piece of work for the Sabres,

a very risky one for the flyers. And I don't know what else there is to say about this trade in terms of what risk linens is going to be or what the flyers were thinking. It's amissifying one to me. I understand the appeal in terms of the theoretical tools. I just, I would love to see, I would love to be a fly on the wall for what they actually were able to either visibly see in the numbers or the eye test that will lead them to believe that this was the right risk to take. I just would love to see what was behind door number two. Like what other options did they have in terms of what you could move the 13th pick for? What other options did they have in terms of, because I acknowledge that the flyers probably needed a physical presence on the Bull Line.

You know, you have Proveroff who isn't all that physical, Ellis, who's 510, Travis Sandheim, who is not physical, Justin Braun, who kits sometimes, but he's not really a physical present. and then you're going to add Cam York who's small. Yeah, you probably needed a guy who is going to, you know, hit, hit somebody, you know, clear the crease, do that penalty kill stuff. I get that. But you wonder, like, you know, David Svar was out there, probably going to be a free Asian. They were willing to trade his rights. You know, you got other guys.

Like, you know, I'm not a huge Zach Bogosian fan, but at least he wouldn't cost the first round pick. Like, there were guys, Travis Hammondick apparently willing to, you know, not only play in Western Canada like before. And I'm not like huge fans of something. of these guys, but they wouldn't have cost what risk-aligning costs in terms of trade value, certainly because they're free agents. And they certainly won't cost as much in free agency as I suspect risk-alining will get on his next deal because of the heavy minutes he's played in his career, because of the points he put up. I mean, he gives himself good comparables,

even if the advanced stats aren't great, because as we know, contracts really aren't given out by, you know, course, the unexpected goals. So to me, I just wonder, you know, was this really the best option or did they just fall in love with the idea of rest of Ristisdalenin? And if this was the only option, if you found out that none of those free agents were interested in signing in Philly, that there was no way you could pride Josh Manson to Anaheim, that this was the only way to get the stylistic fit. I still don't like it, but at least I understand it a little bit more. But if there were other ways to get that type of guy and you just were like, now we want Ristalinen, that's concerning. There are. If you're so hell-bent on it, and I understand the rationale, you don't pay a premium for that. There's other avenues to explore. But we'll see. I think it'll be a fascinating year for

the Flyers, for Rist Aladdin, for you, Charlie O'Connor, covering the team and the player, I'm looking forward to the coverage. It's going to be a content gold mine if his first eight years in the league have been any sort of indication. And yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So plug some stuff. What are you working on these days and where can people check you out? Yeah, I mean, still writing for the athletic. My Twitter handle is Charlie O underscore Khan. Still on the weekly BSH radio show, you can listen to that on all the streaming services. Subscribe if you're interested.

We do our flagship show every week. And then we have a ton of other shows as well. So it's really like a full on almost podcast network in a sense. So yeah, there's the main places you can find me. And obviously right now the main focus is making sense of this offseason the flyers we're having. But certainly plan to have more content common the rest of the summer. and then into next season, which will be interesting. I mean, I look, I would, we talked about this really.

I would love nothing more, you know, not because of like, you know, fandom or anything, but I would love nothing more than risked line into turn it around because that would be an incredible story. That would be a fascinating story. And I would love to break it down and love to figure out, you know, what changes were made and, you know, what he's done to improve his game. It's just a risk that he's going to be able to do it. And, I mean, I'm skeptical, but I'm willing to keep an open mind.

And we'll see what the flyers get out of him when, when October. October rolls around. And if they're right, it will be pretty cool. It would. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to your coverage of it. Keep up the great work. And we'll have you back on sometime here down the road.

So until that, man, take care. All right. Thanks to meet you. All right. Before we get out of here, I want to tack on a quick little explainer to end the show. We recorded right before the draft resumed this morning before round two kicked off. And obviously, since then, the flyers answered one of our questions that we brought up

during the show and hinted at by, shipping Jacob Orichick back to Columbus for Cam Atkinson and one for one deal. We'll save actual deeper analysis for it for a future show when we do one fully devoted to Columbus's busy offseason so far. But I did want to quickly address it here just for anyone that listened and was wondering why we hadn't mentioned it yet. So all the other stuff still holds up. So it's not that big of a deal for our purposes here. But I wouldn't be surprised to see even more moves by the flyers to come, especially with all the noise that we've been hearing, persisting around their interest in Vlad Tarasenko and are still out there. So anyways, it should be a fun and

busy offseason and all this stuff is obviously evolving by the hour seemingly. So that's why I wanted to get the show out there as soon as possible just because I wanted people to be able to listen to it while it was timely. And that was the kind of the purpose of these two small. And that was the kind of the purpose of these two smaller recent trade reaction episodes. I know they're a bit shorter than the usual deep as we do, but it gave us an opportunity to really get into them and get them out there while they're still relevant and before other stuff changes. So we'll have plenty more offseason content coming here over the next week or so. So look forward to that. Thanks for listening to our show. If you have been digging the higher volume of episodes recently, please consider taking a

minute out of your day to go leave the PDOCast a quick little rating and review. Many of you have done so already and each one is greatly appreciated and super helpful so that's going to be for today's episode we'll be back soon and until then the hockey pdo cast with dmitri philipovitch follow on twitter at dim philipovic and on soundcloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdiocast