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Anyone heard from Bobby Ryan lately?

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This isn’t the start of a poorly imitated Seinfeld joke, but... What’s the deal with Anaheim Ducks forward Bobby Ryan? The last we saw of Ryan was during the NHL Awards when he and Ryan Getzlaf were yukking it up in a hilarious skit about their United States versus Canada duel. Since then? Lots of public negotiating on the part of Anaheim GM Bob Murray to, perhaps, get Ryan grounded into a better sense of reality.

Now there’s been a lot of silence on the part of both sides, and no one really seems to know what’s going on as Eric Stephens of the Orange County Register tells us.

The two sides, who appear to be at a legitimate stalemate, are playing it cool for now as Ryan’s lead Newport Sports Management agent, Don Meehan, said in an e-mail to the Register that there have been “no discussions” since Ducks GM Bob Murray revealed the winger turned down reported contract offers of five years and $25 million and four years and $18.6 million.

Murray said last week that there was “nothing new to report” with the situation, which is among the lingering issues that the Ducks are dealing with. He has had regular conversations with Teemu Selanne, which will continue into next week.

Obviously the Ducks would like to get both Ryan and Selanne back into the mix, but whether or not Selanne plays is up to him, he can retire whenever he wants to and it’s a future the Ducks know is coming upon them sooner than later. For Bobby Ryan, however, he is Anaheim’s future and he’s very much their present as well. Ryan made $1.9 million last year and he’s due for a raise and as a restricted free agent, it’s tough to gain too much leverage in negotiations. Even though Ryan’s last two seasons saw him score 31 and then 35 goals, without another team stepping in and signing him to an offer sheet, he can’t really push the Ducks management around into taking action.

Given those two offers made to him for $5 million a year and $4.65 million a year, there’s got to be some brand of common ground to be had as the numbers aren’t outrageous and Anaheim certainly isn’t hard up against the cap, especially with defenseman Scott Niedermayer having retired. Orange County Register columnist Randy Youngman is curious as to what the hold up is as well and points the finger Ryan’s way while scaring Ducks fans into offer sheet madness.

Ryan already has said he’s not worth more than linemates Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, both of whom earn an average of $5.3 million a year, so what’s the hold-up?

Is Ryan’s agent trying get another team to make a bigger offer to the restricted free agent, forcing the Ducks to match? My guess is Ryan believes he’ll be worth more than $5 million in the final years of the contract, so he would prefer to sign for, say, only three years.

It would be interesting, however, if the Kings presented Ryan with an offer sheet worth more than $25 million. That would intensify an already heated rivalry.

Using the cross-town rival to strike fear into the hearts of the local fans isn’t really a new tactic and with the Kings being a bit tied up with Ilya Kovalchuk, it frankly doesn’t make much sense in the first place. That said, the fear of a team with a lot of cap space and a great need for a big time goal scorer offering Ryan a huge offer sheet is very real and one that GM Bob Murray should keep in mind while working out a deal.