This makes me nervous because a lot of the arguments in favour of signing him revolve around this idea of "4th line center with 38 points," which isn't entirely accurate.
His top 5 line combinations at 5v5 were:
Skinner-Ryan-Stempniak
Skinner-Ryan-Williams
McGinn-Ryan-Williams
Skinner-Ryan-Lindholm
Nordstrom-Ryan-Stempniak
And he was a mainstay on the #2PP unit as well. As far as I can tell, the Canes ran the following forwards on the PP:
PP1: Lindholm-Aho-Terevainen-Staal
PP2: Ryan-Skinner-Williams-Rask
Williams and Skinner were the #3 and #4 scorers on the team, so I'd argue Ryan was deployed more like a #2C last year.
His puck possession and faceoff stats obviously differentiate him from Brouwer, but I still think signing him runs some similar risks. We've already got enough forwards that putting Ryan on the PP would be taking ice time from someone (probably Bennett, Jankowski, or Frolik). And if he's not playing on the PP, I doubt we get anywhere near 38 points out of him. And he's probably looking to get paid 38 points worth.
Our bottom 6 has been #### precisely because it's a dumping ground for failed veteran signings. Let the kids run with it and IMO we'll be pleasantly surprised. We're so terrified of a young player struggling on the 4th line that we'd rather spend 4x as much to have a veteran player be equally as bad.
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