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Montreal Canadiens: Two Players The Habs Must Add This Offseason

By Joshua Rosa

MONTREAL, QC - JANUARY 19: Newly appointed general manager of the Montreal Canadiens Kent Hughes, addresses the media at Centre Bell on January 19, 2022 in Montreal, Canada. Kent Hughes becomes the 18th general manager in franchise history. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
MONTREAL, QC - JANUARY 19: Newly appointed general manager of the Montreal Canadiens Kent Hughes, addresses the media at Centre Bell on January 19, 2022 in Montreal, Canada. Kent Hughes becomes the 18th general manager in franchise history. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images) /
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Dec 16, 2021; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Rasmus Ristolainen against Montreal Canadiens left wing Michael Pezzetta. Mandatory Credit: Jean-Yves Ahern-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 16, 2021; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Rasmus Ristolainen against Montreal Canadiens left wing Michael Pezzetta. Mandatory Credit: Jean-Yves Ahern-USA TODAY Sports /

Rasmus Ristolainen

Yes please. Let the angry comments come.

Rasmus Ristolainen is a free agent this coming offseason. Given how the season is going with Philadelphia, I don’t think he will be coming back, and the Montreal Canadiens should sign him.

Ristolainen is 27 years old, listed as 6’4″ and 221 lbs. He was selected by the Buffalo Sabres 8th overall in 2012 and made his NHL debut in the 2013-14 season and has been an NHL regular since. In the offseason, Ristolainen was traded to the Flyers for Robert Hagg, a first round pick and a second round pick. Ristolainen is finishing up a 6 year $5.4 million per year contract.

When drafted by Buffalo, Ristolainen was billed as an offensive threat from the blueline, but was never able to live up to his potential. He has always hovered around 40 points, which isn’t bad, but has never broken 10 goals in a season, and has frequently had a terrible +/- stat. This stat can be skewed really easily, but it is good at showing overall trends, and Ristolainen is a whopping -147 over his career, his worst year was -41 in 2018-19.

But this was Buffalo, one of the worst teams in the entire league the whole time Ristolainen was playing with them, and he had his worst season in 2020-21, with just 18 points. But Philly must have seen something in Rusty, since they paid a hefty ransom for him.

But Ristolainen has once again disappointed with just 13 points in one less game than he played last year, and a -11 on a bad Flyers team. But it is not just the surface level numbers that look bad for Ristolainen. Dig beneath the surface and it gets much, much worse.

Look at it. Just take a minute and really look at it. Not only does this look abysmal, but if you look at the right side of the graphic, you can see that it is getting even worse. The defense has been bad, but that was always sort of assumed with Ristolainen. He was drafted for his offence, but his offence has been awful as well. I mean, what kind of offensive defenseman has never scored over 10 goals in 8 years?

He is perfection. If the Canadiens want a chance at a high draft pick next year, Ristolainen is the perfect combination of lack of production offensively and lack of production defensively to bring the Canadiens to the bottom.

Get through that one okay? Now feathers, prepare to be ruffled.

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