Doesn't insurance cover Ryan's salary while he's hurt, or is that just an LTIR thing?
I don't know the exact ins and outs, but it's probably safe to assume that Ryan's salary isn't covered for on and off injuries, but if his contract is insured, and he has a career ending injury or fails his pre-season physical in the future like MacArthur did, his salary would be returned to Ottawa in some form. The rumour with MacArthur is that we're getting 80 percent of his salary back, which means insurance is paying 3.8M and we are paying 950k of MacArthur's 4.75M yearly salary.
Some players aren't insured (see Horton as SOA posted a link to above). That was the motivation behind the Clarkson for Horton trade between TOR and CBJ. Horton was uninsured and CBJ couldn't spend above the cap salary wise, so it was better for them to spend that money on Clarkson who could play for them than it was to spend it on Horton to sit at home.
(Also of note, Clarkson was insured and while he wasn't injured at the time of the deal, he now like MacArthur failed his physical, will likely never play again, but unlike Horton his contract is insured.)
I'm not hoping for Ryan to get hurt or anything like that, but when discussing the cap/salary ramifications of his contract, considering whether Ryan who has what look to be chronic finger injuries will ever get to a point where he cannot pass his physical isn't that far out of line. I'm no doctor (do any doctors post on HFBoards....?), but there has to be something to it when Ryan can't go more than a few weeks this season without breaking a finger.