What About Bobby Ryan?

I haven't seen anything published linking the Rangers to Bobby Ryan, but thought it might be a good idea to throw around for a few "what if's". I had originally seen, in the comments on this site and elsewhere, that Ryan was looking for $6 mil per, an asking price that is too much to consider. Upon further research, it seems that he is looking for alot less then those. According to this article in The Orange County register, Ryan says his demands are "not even close" to $5.325 mil cap hits Ryan Getzlaf and Correy Perry have on their 5 year extensions. Could Bobby Ryan be one of the RFA's Sather claimed he was interested in? 

With the Rangers facing their own problems signing RFA Marc Staal, it might seem silly to be worrying about other teams RFA's, but if we can't close "the chasm" between the team and Staal, perhaps a straight up swap of Staal for Ryan could help both teams. The Ducks have had some great luck with homegrown talent upfront, but the retirement of Rob Neidermayer leaves a hole to be filled on D. Visnovsky and $5.6 mil cap hit are signed through 2013, and Cam Fowler will be looking for a spot in the next few years, but in the meantime, and down the line, Staal could be a huge asset for the Ducks. With Getzlaf, Perry and Lupul upfront, the Ducks are better served to invest 4-5 mil on their blueline. 

From the Rangers standpoint, Ryan brings some goals with him. Ryan scored 35 goals in his first full NHL season, last year. The season before that he burried 31 in 64 games. While we all have come high hopes for our own prospects, I think each and every one of us would be going bonkers if Grachev, Kreider or Stepan broke into the league with 2 straight 30 goal campaigns. To suggest that ANY of those three should have such fine results in their first two seasons would be seemingly setting the bar far to high for them. If you COMBINED the goal total of Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan over their first 3 seasons in the league, their average isn't 35 goals. I'm not knocking our prospects, but rather saying if we think our prospects will be good NHL players, what does that mean Bobby Ryan will be? 

Because of Sathers past mistakes, we have $11.5 mil tied up on defense for 2 more years. If Staal and Girardi get what they want, we could have $20 mil a season tied up on 4 defenseman, only one of whom (Staal) is a legitimate top 4 defenseman. We have alot of prospects coming up, and two good young options in MDZ and Gilroy.  Moving Staal for Ryan lets us spend the little bit of available cap we have on some much needed offensive help. 

Both Scott Gomez and Chris Drury had only scored more then 30 goals once in their respective NHL careers when we signed them. Ales Kotalik never scored more then 25 in a season when we gave him $9 mil over 3 years. Nik Zherdev was going to be our offensive savior once, and never even had a 30 goal NHL campaign. I bring these names up, because they are all examples of past proposed scoring savior. These are the names that make us leary of free agency. But when you look at these names, and think of how excited you got, remeber that none of them has done what Bobby Ryan has done in 2 years as a professional.