Ryan’s knee is swollen today and he is the NHL’s Rookie of the Month for January. Both are reminders of the fact that when you’re playing well in the NHL, people notice.
“You take everything in stride,” Ryan said on a teleconference Tuesday. “There’s pros and cons. Whether it’s other teams matching their checking line against you or following you around, it comes with the territory. You’ve got to continue to enjoy it while you can.”
After Teemu Selanne’s freak on-ice laceration, Ryan stepped in to the Ducks’ first power-play unit in December – some felt belatedly – and showed why he was the second overall draft pick in 2005. He scored 11 goals in January, tied for the league lead with Calgary’s Mike Cammalleri and the most by a rookie since Alex Ovechkin in March 2006.Ryan recorded points in 12 of 14 games during the month, highlighted by a three-goal outburst in 2:21 during the Ducks’ 4-3 loss at Los Angeles, Jan. 8 – the third-fastest hat trick by a rookie in NHL history. With goals in five consecutive games (Jan. 17-28), he set a Ducks rookie record.
The real breakout moment for Ryan was his third goal against L.A., a sensational fast-break spin-o-rama that he had never displayed in a Ducks uniform (in case you missed it, here it is six times in a row). Since then, the national media has been swooning over the Ryan Revelation(and in light of this award, it will only proliferate),trying to figure out why it took so long for the league to discover the man drafted behind Sidney Crosby.
In Southern California, the onset of what one could call “2005 draft-recap burnout” began some time ago. Sidney Crosby was in a class by himself; let Pittsburgh have him, the thinking goes. At the beginning of this year, Ducks fans would have settled for Devin Setoguchi (who was drafted 8th that year), Anze Kopitar (11th), Martin Hanzal (17th), Andrew Cogliano (25th), even Paul Stastny (44th).
Instead we had Ryan, whose progress came in fits and spurts, and who wondered at the beginning of this year if he was going to be traded.
“I didn’t know if I was going to play in this organization or going to be moved,” he said. “That’s the business side and you roll with it.”
Give Ryan credit: He has rolled with the punches, and it seems to have made him stronger. There were questions on this morning’s conference call about Ryan’s relationship with Randy Carlyle and Brian Burke, who have both used the press (and, in Burke’s case, the American Hockey League) to point out Ryan’s shortcomings. Last night was no exception, when Carlyle accused Ryan of admiring his shot before getting hit by Mair, saying “he’s got to learn to protect himself a little better.”
If history is any indication, he’ll learn to roll with the on-ice punches, too.
