Now that the business of who is going to be behind the bench of the Ottawa Senators is pretty much set, it is time to turn the attention to those sitting on it.
I am going to start with Bobby Ryan.
This is a guy of many faces. When he is on his game, he is a pretty good power forward, a goal scorer who can throw the body around and be physical, and early on this past season he added an aspect of the Mark Stone game and became a pretty good thief all of a sudden.
The key is, early on.
During Ryan's first season in Ottawa, TSN1200 host Sean Simpson took a lot of heat for suggesting that Ryan wasn't in great shape.
The fact is, scorers are streaky, and Ryan fits that mold. The problem is, the streaks all tend to happen at the same time of the season, and that is in the last month and a half. Maybe there is something to the allegation from Simpson.
Injuries have played a factor, the sports hernia in year 1 that he tried to play through and the finger injury that hampered his game this past season, so there is some explanation, but while the Senators went on their run in the spring of 2015, it certainly wasn't on his back.
Here are his points per game in Ottawa by season (lumping March and April together, and a total by month.
It is not all about points, but the eye test tells you that he has also played a different game later in the season, not as agressive, perhaps because he is losing a step to injury or lack of endurance?
So for whatever reason whether they be injuries, game shape, whatever, the Senators can't afford to have any passengers down the stretch, especially not an annual disappearing act from the club's highest paid forward. When the chips are down the team needs him to step up in a big way, and maybe Guy Boucher's most important task, when he sits down with Ryan, will be to figure out what will make him play in March like he does in November.
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