Rasmus Ristolainen Emerging Atop Buffalo Sabres Defense

Rasmus Ristolainen may only be 20 years old, but he’s quickly emerging as one of the top defensemen for the Buffalo Sabres – and is even making a name for himself around the NHL.

Entering Monday’s NHL schedule, Ristolainen is 11^th in average ice time per game – in the league. He’s played an average of 24:38 in the first five games of the Buffalo Sabres’ season.

That’s quite a workload in and of itself, but the number becomes even more impressive when you look at the other players – all defensemen as well – who surround him in that statistical category.

Looking at the top 20 NHL players in ice time through the first week and a half of this season, Ristolainen is, by a landslide, the youngest and most inexperienced player of the bunch. The average age of the other 19 players on the list is 27.8 years old, with eighteen of them age 25 or older.

Ristolainen turns 21 at the end of this month.

In addition to being the youngest in that top 20, Rasmus Ristolainen is also the one with the least amount of NHL experience. You’ve got 10+ year veteran players like Andy Greene, Duncan Keith and Jay Bouwmeester – all averaging below Ristolainen’s ice time right now.

Bouwmeester has the most NHL experience of the group, with 942 games of NHL action under his belt. Literally half of the players on the list have played over 500 games, and then there’s Ristolainen, with 117 games under his own belt.

A look at the average: the other 19 players have played an average of 560 NHL games.

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In addition to being 11^th in the league in total ice time per game, Rasmus Ristolainen is fifth in that category in the Eastern Conference and third in the Atlantic Division.

Among defensemen, his average of 3:37 power play time per game is 14^th in the league, while his average 18:20 even-strength ice time is 37^th in the league. He’s also averaged 2:41 shorthanded per game, good for 44^th overall. His shifts are, on average, 52 seconds long – 20^th in the league among defenders.

In five games this season, Ristolainen has a total of 123:14 of ice time. That leads the Buffalo Sabres by quite a margin; second is center Ryan O’Reilly with 106:05 played.

Besides Ristolainen, the next defenseman to have played the most for the Buffalo Sabres this season is Josh Gorges, who’s skated 101:41 in five games so far.

And this isn’t new for Ristolainen, either.

Last season, he skated in 78 games for the Buffalo Sabres and led the team in total ice time, playing 1,607 minutes and 54 seconds. His average ice time was 20:36 per game, with Gorges, Tyler Myers and Zach Bogosian ahead of him.

Of course, Myers is gone to Winnipeg and Bogosian remains out with injury, so Ristolainen has nicely filled in and has stepped up as the Buffalo Sabres’ top blueliner this season.

A quick glance at Ristolainen’s total ice times in each of the first five games of the 2015-2016 and 2014-2015 seasons easily represents that:

FIRST FIVE GAMES 2015-2016

FIRST FIVE GAMES 2014-2015

23:57

16:04

24:28

16:41

24:58

14:38

26:41

19:15

23:10

14:44

In the first five games of the previous season, Ristolainen averaged an ice time of 16:18 per game – roughly eight minutes less than in the first five games of this season.

While he’s played 123:14 so far this year, he’d played just 81:22 at this point last season.

While his big step up is in part due to the departure of Myers and injury to Bogosian, it’s clear that Rasmus Ristolainen has been a defensive strongpoint for the Buffalo Sabres so far this season.

Did we mention he’s tied for fifth among defensemen in the NHL in shots taken this season? Ristolainen has hit the net 16 times in five games. Only one Buffalo Sabres player has done it more – that’s Tyler Ennis, with 22 shots on goal so far.

Ristolainen is also tied for the team lead in points, with three on the season – tied with Ryan O’Reilly, Matt Moulson and Marcus Foligno.

Right – again, did we mention, he’s still only 20?

For comparison’s sake, here’s a chart of the top 20 NHL players in TOI/GP as of Monday, October 19. Half of the players on this list are currently wearing a letter for their respective team, including three team captains – Andy Greene, Mark Giordano and Erik Karlsson. Seven others wear an A for their team.

[table id=7 /]

It seems likely that Rasmus Ristolainen will continue to be one of the top Buffalo Sabres’ defensemen for the forseeable future – and perhaps the best part is that he IS still so young with plenty of time and space to grow.

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