News Article: Rasmus Ristolainen aggressively throws himself into boards, wipes out hard

[sufferer]

Can we just remember the development path of Risto next time we start clamoring for a young large dman to be more physical? It should've been obvious from a young age that his ceiling was much closer to Brian Campbell than Chris Pronger, yet we (various coaches, the fans, the media) just had to pigeon hole him into that big, tough, shutdown, mean, hard hitting role. Myers, Risto, Rinse, Wash, Repeat. Maybe we should just start only drafting defensemen under 6 feet so there won't be stupid pressure to make them have snarl.

Risto was always known as a physical player.

 

[Ygo]

I thought this one was worse in real time. After taking a 2nd (and 3rd look), he really didn't have many options.

• Montour was literally standing on the goaline when Risto decided to go up the boards (he originally went there for support in case Risto lost the initial puck battle)
• Lazar is moving to create interference from the incoming forechecker, so he's not available for a pass
• Vesey is above the far side circle, so a pass cross-ice on the backhand is not something I'd recommend
• The angle of the incoming forechecker makes any soft pass to the middle a bit riskier
• Simmonds lets Carlson get position in front of him, I assume he just wasn't fast enough to adjust to Carlson

I think Risto has one option - use the leverage that Lazar created from the incoming forechecker to skate the puck further up in the zone, get the puck on your forehand and make a clean first pass. But he was also at the end of his shift, following a big hit, so he was probably in "Get the puck out and change" mode

This is just it... he makes poor decisions with the puck. He literally picked the worst option after making a play that put him in position to make a good play. He would have been better off losing the battle behind the net and marking up. People like the tools, but, if the tools lead to scoring chances against... He is a QB with all the tools that can't stop throwing interceptions. You love the skill set, but can't live with the results (unless you are the Sabres, then you can live with the results for 25 minutes a night).

 

[Chainshot]

Can we just remember the development path of Risto next time we start clamoring for a young large dman to be more physical? It should've been obvious from a young age that his ceiling was much closer to Brian Campbell than Chris Pronger, yet we (various coaches, the fans, the media) just had to pigeon hole him into that big, tough, shutdown, mean, hard hitting role. Myers, Risto, Rinse, Wash, Repeat. Maybe we should just start only drafting defensemen under 6 feet so there won't be stupid pressure to make them have snarl.

I think it’s less of a pigeon on them after they arrive and making sure that they have the time to develop their game before they arrive. He’s been in survival mode for so long but it’s all he knows. Experience and coaching at lower levels does work for development sometimes. Maybe the place to look is when we want to rush a player into an area immediately, take a breath and think about all of those who have not reached their high end potential for like Risto.

 

[Jim Bob]

Can we just remember the development path of Risto next time we start clamoring for a young large dman to be more physical? It should've been obvious from a young age that his ceiling was much closer to Brian Campbell than Chris Pronger, yet we (various coaches, the fans, the media) just had to pigeon hole him into that big, tough, shutdown, mean, hard hitting role. Myers, Risto, Rinse, Wash, Repeat. Maybe we should just start only drafting defensemen under 6 feet so there won't be stupid pressure to make them have snarl.

Risto's snarl isn't the issue.

And his lack of hockey IQ doesn't have anything to do with his physical game.

The issue is the same one that guys like Mitts have had and that is being rushed to the pro game in North America and the NHL.

 

[Chainshot]

Seems to be going around: