FlamesNation Mailbag: Derek Ryan, among other things

Today, we’re discussing Derek Ryan, goaltending at both levels, and defencemen. Lots of variety in this mailbag!

I think Oliver Kylington will be pro-ready by next season. He’s Stockton’s best player right now and it’s going to be tough to deny him a spot next October.

The question is: who does he replace? On the left side, you have Mark Giordano (no), Noah Hanifin (no), and Juuso Valimaki (no). If he can play the right side, he has to displace one of TJ Brodie, Travis Hamonic, or Rasmus Andersson, which is probably also not happening. I don’t think they trade him (teams trading for just a prospect is incredibly rare in the first place), but would rather keep him around for depth purposes and see how things break after Brodie and Hamonic’s contracts expire in 2021.

The Flames have zero other legitimate prospect defencemen in the system, so they kind of need to stick with Kylington. The payoff ain’t bad, though.

Hanifin looks not great early on. He’s getting a lot of coverage from the excellent play of Hamonic so far, which isn’t great for one of the prize acquisitions of the offseason and your second highest paid defender. Oddly enough, he hasn’t been bad from a fancy stats perspective. Hanifin rocks a 55.24 CF% at 5v5 with the harshest zone starts of the team at 44.85%. He’s been fine for the majority of the time (though being stapled to the 3M line helps), but his brain fart moments and passive defensive play is sinking him. If he didn’t have Hamonic to lean on, things would certainly be uglier.

It’s hopefully settling issues. Hamonic also had a pretty rough start to his time in Calgary, but has started to look more and more legit as time has gone on. Perhaps the same happens to Hanifin and he reaches a higher level next season. He’s also young, so there’s still room to grow (however, Andersson and Valimaki are around the same age as Hanifin and have way less pro experience but look around the same as Hanifin does).

Give Hanifin some time, but remain wary of his results. If he doesn’t improve by the halfway point or show much measurable growth, it’s going to be an anxious five years ahead of us.

Well, Jon Gillies has been uncharacteristically bad so far. His NHL future was always up for debate, but he was always at least a .910 or better AHL goalie. For him to be this bad is surprising. Tyler Parsons has only started twice, so not yet worth analyzing.

Gillies has had a rough start to things, certainly, but Stockton’s problems are more than just goaltending. They’re among one of the most penalized teams in the AHL, are routinely outshot night in, night out, and have a pretty rough defensive group outside of Kylington. Factor in a new coach and plenty of new faces, and you have yourself one big mess. They’ve rarely had themselves a complete game and it shows in the boxscores.

Parsons’ injury also means that Gillies is given 100% of the net. With the exception of Ryan Farragher and Nick Schneider each playing a period, no one but Gillies has seen the net since Parsons went down. I’m not against Gillies getting more reps in the AHL, but a no-rest workload is going to have some major impact on his results.

If David Rittich continues on the same trajectory, there’s no reason he isn’t. One goalie has shown that he can save at least 90% of shots on a nightly basis while the other hasn’t. That’s how you determine your starter.

Mike Smith is definitely on thin ice already. I think that you could take a rational look at who he is and reasonably determine how he is going to perform for the rest of the year (poorly), but the coaching staff is probably going to give him a few more chances to establish himself. If he doesn’t string together a few good starts in the next month or so, he’s probably done.

Yes. Ryan is like Matt Stajan in that he’s been given the defensive responsibilities (worst OZS of all forwards at 48.35%) but has been seeing more success than Stajan thus far. Ryan currently has a +1.06 CFrel% at 5v5, which would’ve been Stajan’s highest since 2013-14. He essentially has the same role, but is doing a better job of it.

I think the complaints are mostly based around his lack of points. Ryan isn’t scoring a lot yet (I say yet because Bill Peters has managed to get some solid offensive production out of him in past seasons) but that’s not what Peters is expecting him to do. He’s tasked with defensive responsibilities, and is doing pretty well in that role. Perhaps that’s not getting the most out of him, but given that the Flames are not relying on him to score, as Peters’ Carolina teams needed him to (Peters sheltered Ryan extensively with the Hurricanes) he’s fine. His scoring numbers will increase when he’s given an offensive role, but he’s still succeeding in a defensive one.

It’s a little expensive for what Ryan is, but it isn’t bad. The contract is only three years long and clocks in at just under 4% of the total cap, a number which will decrease on a year-by-year basis. It also has no clauses, which makes him slightly easier to move, should the need arise.

The contract also comes during an interesting period. There’s a looming lockout, which could mean compliance buyouts. There’s also an upcoming expansion draft, and Ryan is pretty good bait for the future Seattle Grinders (Ryan is from Spokane, so a good hometown boy).

Ryan’s contract is just fine. A bit overpaid for a bottom six guy, but it doesn’t hamper the org’s ability to compete. It’s certainly not the best contract on the team, but far from the worst.

No. He’s proven that he can stick around at the NHL level, so there’s really no point sending him down unless for conditioning purposes (and even then, he probably doesn’t need it). The team is focused on depth, so keeping around an actual NHL piece instead of Anthony Peluso is probably how they do it.

Twenty goals, 40 points is certainly fair to expect. That’s what the Flames paid for, after all.