Leave it to Nick Kypreos to keep the pot stirred on the rumor mill. Last night, Sportsnet’s Darren Millard tweeted that Kypreos heard from an NHL executive that Anaheim is shopping Bobby Ryan around to see what they could get in a deal for the former first round pick.
With coach Randy Carlyle still in good graces with management, making a trade of some kind to shake things up with the miserable Ducks (losers of 16 of their last 18) would make sense. For a team that’s lacking in offensive depth, however, trading Ryan on the surface doesn’t appear to make much sense. Looking deeper, however, perhaps there’s good reason.
There’s no secret that aside from offensive depth one of the other problems the Ducks have is on defense. There’s no stud defenseman here that’s capable of playing shutdown defense and while Lubomir Visnovsky is hurt, he’s a point producer and not a stopper. You’d have to think if Ryan is being shopped around that a top flight defenseman would be their target.
How Nashville handles things with both Ryan Suter and Shea Weber all of a sudden seems a lot more interesting.
Will Ryan be traded? Impossible to say, but if Ryan is the guy that’s got Carlyle’s ire and Ducks GM Bob Murray is sticking with the coach, the Ducks should have no shortage of suitors for the 24 year-old star.
Question is, what would Anaheim want in return? A package involving a low-cost, high-potential defenseman and a prospect forward might be a good jumping off point. We’re sure that Leafs GM Brian Burke would love to get him since he’s the guy that drafted him in Anaheim years ago.