Ok, so for those who don't see Risto more than a handful of times a year (or really any hockey fan Googling, "The Curious Case of Rasmus Ristolainen"...). Here you have it.
Risto is an offensive shooting d-man with a ton of secondary tools. Not including his great to sporadically elite slapshot, these include good skating, solid passing, some snarl, good to great vision, and an ultra fiery compete level. Where he struggles is when he's forced to play the kind of role typically reserved for the likes of Marc Edouard Vlasic, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Colton Parayko, etc. For the last... Jesus, I can't even quantify how long this has been going on now between our last several coaches... Risto has continually been matched against top opposition every night because there is little to no depth behind him in the pairings. This has led to him getting far more minutes than he should on an average basis. To compound things, the forward corps in front of him is unable to break up any sustained D-zone pressure through puck support, poor coaching, poor communication, what have you. The end result is Risto getting hemmed in, forced into dumb decisions (or periodically just making them because he's subject to making them at times... his hockey IQ isn't the best, but it's not the worst), getting hung out to dry, and getting obliterated analytically.
Risto is at his best when he's providing confident support for the attack. He needs an absolutely stout, solid (pick your adjective) LH SAH DD behind him to disrupt breakouts & dump ins, take on primary crease clearing duties (so that Risto only needs to worry about supporting that role, not carrying it), and most of all - cover Risto's ass. Risto likes to be a cowboy sometimes off the rush, and we get burned by it consistently.
So what does this presently mean for the Sabres and/or teams that are courting the Sabres for Risto's services? It means that any team with that kind of positive analytic, left side stay-at-home guy should see Risto as a potentially huge get to partner with that player. But for the Sabres (and personally, this is my preference), in lieu of shopping Risto, we should be shopping for that SAH guy to pair with Risto. We have one in the system (Samuelsson), but he's likely still a year or two away.
As complicated as Risto's case has been, I believe it is a relatively easy fix that the most incompetent facets of our organization have failed to address. We still have the opportunity to put him in a position to succeed. This is why I say - we don't have to trade him. If a team wants him, the above is exactly why we should be asking very high for him.
