While Rasmus Ristolainen has been a productive defenseman at the offensive end over the past four seasons, it doesn’t appear to be enough to move the needle on his trade value.
Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News reports that the market for Ristolainen doesn’t appear to be particularly large. While his name has been in trade speculation dating back to last season (and the 24-year-old appears to be open to a move), the Sabres indicated at a fan event earlier this summer that they’re not against giving him another opportunity with new head coach Ralph Krueger now running the bench.
Ristolainen has three years left on his deal with a $5.4M cap hit and will be an unrestricted free agent in 2022.
There are more Saturday morning notes from around the NHL:
- While it may take a bit of time for the Canucks to get a deal done with winger Brock Boeser, GM Jim Benning told Postmedia’s Ben Kuzma that he’s “hoping to get something figured out in short order” with restricted free-agent winger Nikolay Goldobin. The 23-year-old Goldobin finished seventh on the team in scoring last season despite missing 19 games. However, a lot of those games missed were as healthy scratches as the team has concerns about his all-around game. His 27 points should be enough to get him more than his qualifying offer, but given Vancouver is probably going to be over the Upper Limit when a Boeser deal gets done, it’s likely the Canucks will push for a one-year pact with Goldobin to keep the AAV as low as possible.
- Lars Eller’s lower-body injury that took him out of the World Championships early in the tournament won’t prevent him from being ready for training camp. The Capitals center told NBC Sports Washington’s J.J. Regan that he has fully recovered following a long rest period. He also denied a report at the time of the Worlds that said he was only going to play three games no matter what. He clarified that the injury (one that he hoped would only take a couple of weeks to rehab so that he could play for Denmark) was what took him out of the tournament prematurely.
More must-reads: