{"id":328510,"date":"2025-12-03T18:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T18:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328510\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T18:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T18:59:11","slug":"metro-notes-ristolainen-rangers-horcoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328510\/","title":{"rendered":"Metro Notes: Ristolainen, Rangers, Horcoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen<\/a> was on the ice for the Flyers\u2019 morning skate today wearing a no-contact jersey, reports NBC Sports Philadelphia\u2019s Jordan Hall<\/a>. Per Hall, this is Ristolainen\u2019s first skate with the team in 2025-26. Ristolainen is still recovering from the right triceps surgery he underwent in March. While it\u2019s unclear at this point how far Ristolainen is from fitness to play in games, today\u2019s sight is an encouraging one for the Flyers, who stand to benefit greatly whenever Ristolainen is back to full health.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old had a strong 2024-25 season in Philadelphia. While he only managed 19 points, which is a far cry from the production he used to post consistently as a member of the Buffalo Sabres, he made his mark defensively. Standing 6\u20194\u2033 and 208 pounds, Ristolainen provided valuable size to the Flyers\u2019 defense, and managed to kill penalties at a decent clip. He was the Flyers\u2019 No. 2 defenseman in terms of ice time last season, averaging 20:31 time on ice per game including time on both special teams units. The Flyers have relied more heavily on Cam York<\/a> and Jamie Drysdale<\/a> in Ristolainen\u2019s absence, with each player currently at a significantly higher average time on ice per game in 2025-26 compared to last season. Getting Ristolainen back at some point should allow for more balance in terms of how the Flyers coaching staff is able to deploy their blueliners.<\/p>\n

Other notes from the Metropolitan Division:<\/p>\n

In 2022, the New York Rangers made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Final, and their run was greatly aided by their \u201ckid\u201d line made up of a trio of top draft picks: Alexis Lafreniere<\/a>, Kaapo Kakko<\/a>, and Filip Chytil<\/a>. While two of those three players have since been traded away, it appears the Rangers could be in the process of discovering another third line made up of its youngest players. The Athletic\u2019s Peter Baugh wrote today that \u201cThe Rangers\u2019 third line of Will Cuylle<\/a>, Noah Laba<\/a> and Brett Berard<\/a> was buzzing\u201d during the team\u2019s win over the Dallas Stars, and brought up that the Rangers held a decisive lead in high-danger scoring chances whenever that line was on the ice. While it\u2019s too early to tell if that line will stick long-term, those early results are promising. Cuylle is the most experienced player on the line (195 career NHL games played, 45 points last season) while Laba is in his rookie campaign and Berard has just 40 career NHL games. While the Rangers\u2019 track record of developing its top forward draft picks has come under some recent scrutiny, each member of the aforementioned trio is a success story for the organization. Both Cuylle and Berard were second-day NHL draft picks who spent time in AHL Hartford before reaching the NHL, while Laba is a fourth-round pick who spent time in the NCAA.
\nWhen the Pittsburgh Penguins drafted center Will Horcoff<\/a> at the No. 24 slot at the 2025 NHL Draft, their selection came earlier than where Horcoff had been ranked by most public-facing outlets. While he was ranked No. 27 by TSN\u2019s Bob McKenzie<\/a> and No. 28 by Corey Pronman of The Athletic<\/a>, many other outlets, such as the team at Elite Prospects<\/a> and TSN\u2019s Craig Button<\/a>, ranked him more as a second-rounder. So far, Horcoff\u2019s performances have easily justified his first-round draft slot. He\u2019s currently tied for the overall scoring lead in all of college hockey with 26 points in 18 games. He also leads the country in goal-scoring by a wide margin, his 18 markers quite a bit higher than the next-highest scorer. (DET\u2019s Max Plante<\/a>, who has 13) While it\u2019s unclear whether Horcoff\u2019s incredible start to 2025-26 has materially impacted how scouts view his long-term projection, it is clear that the early returns on Pittsburgh\u2019s investment of a first-round draft choice have been wholly positive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen was on the ice for the Flyers\u2019 morning skate today wearing a no-contact…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[28985,4823,385,132404,1789,1790,166943,99,134324,34109],"class_list":["post-328510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-brett-berard","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-noah-laba","tag-philadelphia-flyers","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-rasmus-ristolainen","tag-sports","tag-will-cuylle","tag-will-horcoff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}