I’m no fan of Filppula, but at least he is a center. We have more than enough wingers between the roster and AHL, but are desperately thin at center. I’d rather use Filppula as a placeholder center for now than have Ryan take a roster spot from one of our many winger prospects.
After Larkin, all we have at center is Suter, Namestnilov, Stephens, and Veleno. One injury and we are trying Fabbri or Rasmussen at center again or bringing up Kyle Criscuolo. That’s horrible center depth and our 4 roster centers are not exactly world beaters. Filppula is arguably the 4th best center we have in the organization if we re-signed him.
compare that to the wing. We have Vrana, Bertuzzi, Rasmussen, Fabbri, Erne, Gagner, Smith and Zadina who are all clearly better for the roster than Ryan plus Raymond, Berggren, Witkowski, and even Hirose who I’d prefer to have on the roster over him. Bobby Ryan just doesn’t provide much outside of ‘leadership’ on a team that needs production out of a top 6 player. We have plenty of barely productive vet leaders between Gagner, Namestnikov, Leddy, Staal, and DeKeyser.
Out of curiosity, what winger do you kick out of the lineup for Ryan? He’s not a guy you sign as a 15th forward guy and he’s not someone you want in the bottom 6 as he provides no value there. Are you bumping Vrana, Bertuzzi, Fabbri, or Zadina out of the top 6 for him? Will he actually be more productive than any of them would be? I highly doubt it.
