Will The Real Risto Please Stand Up?

Will there ever be unity among the analytics folks and the eye testers?

I felt the day before Thanksgiving would be a fitting time to write this one as it is time for the analytic folk and eye testers to sit at the same table and start building a bridge that we some how can not help but stray further away from. Rasmus Ristolainen is a case that I am sure will bring everyone together, right?… Right?!

When the Flyers acquired Rasmus Ristolainen they were acquiring a big bodied, right-shot defenseman with a 1st round pedigree and 1st round skills to both sure up the corps and add some snarl to a team that very obviously lacked it. They were also acquiring a defenseman who has produced some of the worst analytical numbers at his position during his time in Buffalo.

Detractors have a strong case when it comes to the numbers. His are objectively bad. Some will say he was on a lackluster (to put it lightly) Buffalo squad that did not give anyone a chance to be successful. Some will point to how Taylor Hall’s game suffered in his short time there, while being an incredibly effective player both before and after his Buffalo tenure. Some will say he was being played in a role that did not suit his strengths and him doing too much.

Maybe there is something to one or all of these counters. Really all we can go off of were his days in Buffalo and what that told us was that while Ristolainen could throw his weight around and contribute a decent share of offense, the team as a whole performed better when he was off the ice than when he was on it.

Ristolainen’s best statistical season came in 2018-2019 when he posted mediocre numbers of 48.13% Fenwick and a 47.03xG%. He also posted 5 goals and 43 points that season with a lot of his offensive success coming on the Power Play. In the 8 seasons prior to this one, Ristolainen had 32 different unique defense pairings. In 25 of those his defense partner produced worse results with him rather than without him. In only 3 of those pairings did the unit produce above average returns.

This is a snippet of that analysis which shows the past 3 seasons here. The columns from left to right portray the season, Time on Ice Together, Corsi For Percentage of Ristolainen, Corsi For % of his teammate, and Corsi For Percentage of the 2 of them together. Ristolainen had poor numbers on his own, but he also seemed to bring down everyone he played with, minus Lawrence Pilut. As with all of the data, this is not a be all end all, but there are a lot of negative numbers stacking up against Ristolainen and very little positives to point to.  

During the course of this season we are going to learn a lot about the real Risto. He is 26 years old, has a lot of experience in this league, and if the results are poor this year, I think it would be safe to say we know what he is and it is not changing.

I am not here to argue for or against the trade that brought him here. I’m not even here to argue for or against the player. I’m just here to evaluate what he has provided so far and hope we can all keep a level head about it.

Thus far, the Flyers have gotten off to an interesting start. The record of 8-6-3 is not atrocious. The underlying numbers (45.92 xGF% and 47.8 FF%)… are… and continue to trend down. The team performance may be a post for another time but I mention their underwhelming numbers just to add context to what I am going to show you.

Rasmus Ristolainen leads the team, by a wide margin, with 52 hits while also adding 26 blocked shots this season. Despite what “fancy stats” haters want to believe, hits and blocked shots are also analytics. The problem with lauding these two metrics is that a player only accumulates numbers in these categories when they do not have the puck.

Obviously you can’t have the puck all of the time and hits and blocked shots can be huge in getting the puck back, but when a player racks up a large number, it is often because they are caught defending far too much. Additionally, some players go out of their way to make a big hit, but leave other players open as a result of their aggressiveness.

There’s a misconception when it comes to analytics that the numbers hate any player who is physical. That is far from true, but the above chart is the reason that the stats can tend to reflect poorly on those super physical players. Don’t get me wrong, I agree the Flyers badly needed some added physical presence. Players took liberties far too often against them and made themselves mighty comfy in front of Carter Hart and Brian Elliott last season.

The concern was that Ristolainen wouldn’t provide good play, along with his physicality. Despite 8 poor seasons in Buffalo, the Flyers took an expensive bet this offseason that he could come into a presumably better team (Jury’s out), play 2nd pair minutes better suited for him, bring his edge, and all of the sudden drive play as a result. Were they right? Well, through 17 games, only 4 Flyers and one defenseman have an Expected Goals Percentage above 50. That defenseman is Rasmus Ristolainen (50.96%). These numbers don’t explain everything and also reflect poorly on the rest of the team thus far, but they still stand out.

Since he has played 15 games, let’s break it down into thirds and try to get a better look.

You can see that Ristolainen’s first 5 games looked a lot like his time in Buffalo. Of course his first 5 are the easiest to dismiss considering he was coming off of an injury, getting acclimated to his new team and partner, and just getting his early season legs back. Nonetheless, it was ominous.

However, Ristolainen bounced back in a huge way with dominating results in his next 5 games. This version is the one the Flyers envisioned when trading for him. His most recent 5 games have been about break even while still maintaining a high goals for percentage; nothing to write home about, but also nothing to scoff at, especially factoring in the Flyers overall team play.

As for raw points, Ristolainen has managed just 3 helpers. He has not received any Power Play time and the team is still waiting for him to utilize his big shot more often. 

It is important to note that 15 games is a very small sample, let alone these 5 game subsets, but it is fantastic to see some of the good performances Rasmus has given the team, while still being the big Viking that he is billed to be.

The Flyers traded a decent amount of value for him and needed a lot of help defensively and physically. Ristolainen has not been perfect. His overall results are fine, not spectacular. He has had some ugly turnovers and head scratching plays that give merit to some people’s concerns on his hockey IQ.

On the other hand, he has produced better on ice numbers than any defenseman on the team and has been “fine” on a team that very much has not been. The Flyers are sputtering and have been getting out chanced all season. They badly need him to continue to play well, while also unlocking some of his offensive instincts as they continue this brutal stretch of games.

Ristolainen will be talked about all season long by everyone and anyone who had a take on that trade and the player. Of course there are things that the numbers can not measure and we can not get a full scope picture of his impact strictly by looking at them but they are a pretty solid indication more often than not.

With that being said, we still don’t know who the real Risto is, but we certainly hope he is closer to the version that has played the past 10 games. It remains a lofty bet to make but at least we are seeing some glimmers of hope. 

*  xGF% = expected goals for percentage (total expected goal value of all Fenwick shots)
*  FF% = Fenwick for percentage; Fenwick includes every unblocked shot attempt
*  Stats are from hockey-reference.com and Evolving-Hockey.com

Paul Pollock is Head of HW Analytics Department
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