Is Derek Ryan's NHL career over?
As we are all no doubt aware, Noah Philp has been called up from Bakersfield, this time - at least as far as the speculation goes, anyway - for an extended stay to see if he can be an NHL regular. Philp had been having a solid season in Bakersfield up until then, so this is well deserved for him. Philp is now being tested to see if he can handle NHL minutes for the next 20 games or so, as the fourth line centre spot recently came up for grabs.
The impetus for this is the declining play of Derek Ryan. He had been a healthy scratch for the last little while and his ice time had been declining for months before that, as had his speed. At 38 years old it wouldn't be a surprise if Ryan's NHL career was over. Anyway, between calling up Philp and signing Klingberg, the Oilers needed to make room for the two newbies on the roster.
So, what they ended up doing was "re-loaning" Josh Brown to Bakersfield and placing Ryan on waivers for the purposes of re-assignment to Bakersfield. Monday's Edmonton Journal revealed, that, unsurprisingly, Ryan cleared waivers and thus is going down to Bakersfield. Will Ryan ever get back to the team? I would say the most likeliest scenario is that he comes back on the taxi squad for the playoffs.
Right now there are other guys much more deserving of callups than Ryan - Mattiew Savoie, James Hamblin, and the aforementioned Rodrigue all come to mind. Ryan's $950,000 contract expires after this season, and honestly I double he'll be re-signed. He can probably go back to Europe for a couple of seasons before hanging up his skates at 40, if I had to guess.