Much like I sense the organization is moving away from Jason Spezza (and towards a trade this off-season), I believe the team is very much dedicated to extending winger Bobby Ryan.
Ryan -- acquired in a summer deal last year with Anaheim in exchange for a first-round pick, and youngsters Stefan Noesen and Jakob Silfverberg -- had a fairly strong year, with 23G and 25A in 70GP.
There's truth to the argument that Ryan's second-half of the season slowed in terms of production and performance, but by the final month of play, we had learned that Ryan was playing through a sports hernia since mid-November. He aggravated the injury in a collision with the end-boards in a late-season game against Dallas. Murray had this to add on the injury at the time of his loss:
He got hurt early on and tried to play through it. He felt it handicapped him a little as far as shooting the puck in particular was concerned. Then he had a couple of incidents where things cropped up. Going into the boards the way he did in Dallas was a time we had to decide with him that it was best to stop playing for a bit and get it repaired and give him a chance. I think if we were still in a real serious, serious position here we could maybe get another game or two out of him but it doesn't make a lot of sense at this point in time to continue playing when you're hurt.
I think playing through the injury endeared himself to the organization. I mean, four months battling through a sports hernia is kind of insane. The front office and coaching staff are still fawning over his goal-scoring prowess, too. All in all, I think you have a situation where extending Bobby Ryan before he becomes UFA at the end of 2014-2015 gets placed on the front burner.
Now of course, there are plenty of obstacles here. One, Bobby Ryan -- though he says he would love to stay in Ottawa long-term -- may still want to see what's out there in unrestricted free agency, which would kind of put a dent in Ottawa's extension plans. Two, the budget. I kind of believe that the team's holding back some of the money this year for players in the future (e.g. Ryan/MacArthur), but they're still not going to spend anywhere near the salary cap, so whether it's Ryan or someone else, there's likely going to be another round of salary purging over the next twelve months.
Assuming one and two are taken care of, obstacle number three -- the dollar and term it's going to take to retain a guy who has scored 164-goals since the 2008-2009 season -- could prove most problematic. How much do you spend on a guy that's much more shooting percentages, much less driving play?
It's a tricky question. But, I think there's a very real comparable coming up in Thomas Vanek, who is going to get a massive deal from somebody this off-season. Vanek has 173 goals since 2008-2009, and is very much like Ryan: God-given talent shooting the puck, maybe not the best player driving play and deterring scoring chances against, but overall a fantastic commodity to have in your top-six (and really, on your first-line).
For what it's worth, Phil Kessel -- who, for my money, is one of the best forwards in the world -- just recently signed a major extension at eight years, $64MM. I don't sense Ryan will get near that, but it's possible you could have something clock in at just under.
What will it take? I don't think seven years, $46MM is out of the question, assuming Ryan has another strong showing in 2014-2015.
Big decision for Ottawa looming here.