[TheScorpion]

I try so, so hard to like Derek Ryan. I wanted him on this team for a very long time.

He's disappointed me to say the least. I will say that his best shift of the game did come when he was thrown out in the last two minutes and won the critical faceoff... but at the same time, he clearly should be utilized more as a 10-11 minute a night defensive specialist. You know, what he's best at.

I've watched a lot of Derek Ryan in anticipation of him coming here. He's a very low-event player in general. The difference between his utilization here and that in Carolina is that a) in Carolina he played with Jeff Skinner and b) he often played net-front on the PP, and was really, really quite good with picking up pucks in front of the net on rebounds. The problem here is that Calgary's system isn't very conducive to Ryan being able to get those chances in front of the net, and he doesn't really play with anyone close to Skinner's level of talent.

He's been disappointing, for sure. I've never seen him make so many bad passes as he has here, and his offensive play overall has been pretty bad. I do think that people are looking past his very good defensive play, especially on the penalty kill, and he's still very good at faceoffs, especially timely ones. However, for $3.1 million, the Flames need more from him for sure.

Anyway, I don't think he sucks, nor do I think he's a totally lost cause. However, he hasn't worked yet, for sure.