I am worried that Risto will get the ROR treatment this summer. He will get moved for a 1st and a cap dump or two with the idea that he is so bad that it will be addition by subtraction.
But, there will be no move to actually replace his minutes with someone who is better than he is and the team is worse off because of the void that is created.
I have no issue with trading Ristolainen if it is a part of a series of off season moves that make the team better.
However, given how the ROR trade went down and the lack of moves to shore up the center depth, I am not optimistic that Botterill can trade away Ristolainen and improve the defensive depth to the point that the team improves.
With the way they actively use Risto, if they get a worse hockey player as a replacement but don't give them 25 minutes a game, there's almost no chance we're worse off, because putting Risto out there is a guarantee to get caved in no matter what at this point. It's like ROR in a different way - "who will take those minutes?" Literally, those minutes shouldn't exist unless you have prime Ryan Suter. The Penguins managed to win a cup without that player. Pretty much any good team without a Norris candidate does a way better job of distributing the load than our coaches have over the last few years.
Risto causes the problems himself by being content to hand the puck to the other team way too often. I tried counting this stuff re-watching games last offseason, and he happily flipped the puck to the other teams' defensemen with plenty of space himself more than twice as often per zone exit attempt than any other bad sabres defenseman. That's his own choice, it's not a product of anything other than that. It leads to goals against often. I've only watched a couple of the last 10 games, but in Chicago he had Montour wide open 5 feet away and instead peppered the puck around the boards to the Chicago D. We never touched it again, they scored within 30 seconds, and he wasn't even on the ice for the minus.
So, we could make things better, but what we'd be doing is
minimizing Risto's negative effect on the team, not saving Risto from a situation that's making him a bad hockey player he wouldn't be otherwise.
I'd be fine with keeping him to play in a reduced, offensive role with Pilut, who is the only NHL player in history he's ever had positive splits of any stats, from goals to expected goals to corsi etc with, and I'd be fine with a Miller/Cernak or Miller/Foote(sounds like lightning fans are appalled by the idea of the latter) split.