Two Canadian teams eyeing Rasmus Ristolainen, plenty of competition for his services
Rasmus Ristolainen has been the subject of potential trade rumours for the last two seasons. However, it seems has price has now been named with plenty of teams negotiating for his services, including two in Canada.
According to the Athletic's Pierre LeBrun, TSN's Pierre LeBrun, several teams are interested. He specifically named the Montreal Canadiens and Winnipeg Jets as being involved in talks. The Habs are looking to replace Shea Weber, who is said to be missing most, or all of next season, and possibly never returning to play again. Meanwhile, the Jets are worried about losing Dylan DeMelo to the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday, leaving a void on their blueline. DeMelo played top four minutes for just about all of Winnipeg's games last season.
There are rumours the Sabres want an NHK ready prospect and a second round pick to land Ristolainen, who was selcted 8th overall in 2013. Ristolainen has 46 goals and 199 assists in 542 career games. He's also 6-foot-4, 220 lbs and knows how to throw his weight around. Ristolainen has one year remaining on his contract with a cap hit of $5.4 million. He'll be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2021-22 campaign.His relationship with the Sabres has been rocky recently, with him talking about potentially leaving the team during the last offseason. Ristolainen was also very ill in February of this year and missed plenty of time as he battled a terrible case of COVID-19. He has spoken at length about hardly being able to move for days on end and having trouble just walking up sets of stairs for weeks after his initial diagnosis.
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Shea Theodore | - | 4 | 4 | |
| Charlie Coyle | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Matthew Knies | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Barrett Hayton | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Mitch Marner | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Jared McCann | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Bo Horvat | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Nick Paul | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Anthony Beauvillier | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sidney Crosby | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Ryan Donato | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jack Eichel | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Kevin Hayes | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Clayton Keller | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Philipp Kurashev | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Adam Larsson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Elias Lindholm | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Capitals | 46 | 31 | 10 | 5 | 67 | |
Jets | 48 | 31 | 14 | 3 | 65 | |
Golden Knights | 47 | 29 | 14 | 4 | 62 | |
Maple Leafs | 48 | 30 | 16 | 2 | 62 | |
Oilers | 46 | 29 | 14 | 3 | 61 | |
Wild | 47 | 28 | 15 | 4 | 60 | |
Stars | 46 | 29 | 16 | 1 | 59 | |
Hurricanes | 47 | 28 | 16 | 3 | 59 | |
Devils | 49 | 26 | 17 | 6 | 58 | |
Panthers | 47 | 27 | 17 | 3 | 57 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||