Not paying a first for half a year of an overrated d man who won’t even help the leafs at all

That’s fine. Some GM will. Especially if they can offload a $2mil caphit from next season’s books in the process.

Risto isnt an upgrade on anything the leafs have in their entire system He's awful. really really awful

Look, I get the Risto hate. Especially from Leafs fans who watched him play top minutes with a **** Buffalo team. He’s been much better this year playing 2nd pair minutes on a very bad Philly team. He would be a very capable 2nd pair guy or very good 3rd pair guy on the Leafs.

except that his defensive numbers are still trash and hes not even scoring close to what he used to. He's just not good at all. And the leafs dont need 3rd pairing defenders, like at all, especially at that hilarious cost

Everyone on Philly has trash defensive numbers, but his are an improvement over his Buffalo numbers. His offense has dipped because he no longer gets as much PP time.
Maybe Risto isn’t the answer in Toronto, but there are very few defensive rentals out there, and not many better than Ristolainen. I can’t see Dubas being afraid to trade a very late 1st while dumping future cap at the same time. I think he’d be much more afraid of standing pat and losing in the 1st round again.

Definitely won't be the Avs giving up a third for Brass bollard.