Some of the comments in this thread are just bizarre. But I am going to focus on one set of comments: those referring him to a 4th liner, and comparing him to Brouwer or the kids that 'deserve a shot'.
Ryan had 38 points last year. To put that in perspective, that is more than Pacioretty, Kreider, Tuch, Coyle, Grabner, Saad and Neiderreiter, to name a few of the higher-end players people have been lobbying for.
38 points puts you in the TOP 6 forwards on 21 of the other 30 teams. Yes, 21.
38 points puts you in the top 6 for 9 of the 16 playoff teams last year.
On the Stanley Cup champion Capitals, he would have been 6th
There were only 7 teams on which Ryan and his 38 points wouldn't have been top 6. On the following teams, he would have been:
TOR: 9th
BOS, TB, WIN: 8th
NAS, PIT, VEG: 7th.
So that's top 9 on all 30 teams (31 including Carolina)
And people are talking about him like he's Matt Stajan. We had the least productive bottom 6 in the NHL last year (for whatever reasons). Adding Ryan to the bottom 6 is not something that you should be calling for Treliving's head over.
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