Ryan counting on a short summer
Paradise native part of Qmjhl-leading and star-studded Mooseheads
Andrew Ryan will be the first to tell you his justcompleted Quebec Major Junior Hockey League regular season was far better than his 2011-12 campaign, which was nothing short of disappointing.
“Especially with the season our team had, it made it a little bit more special this year, to be able to contribute to that a little more,” said Ryan, whose Halifax Mooseheads posted a league best 58-6-3-1 record this season.
The Paradise native, a three-year veteran of the Mooseheads, missed the first two months of 2011-12 after breaking his ankle in August. Ryan, who was ranked 64th among North American skaters in the NHL’s Central Scouting mid-term list (which excluded Europeans and goaltenders), struggled to find his game the rest of the way and saw his ranking plummet to 105th and went unselected in the June entry draft.
His bad luck continued into the fall when the NHL lockout forced the cancellation of the St. Louis Blues’ rookie camp to which Ryan had been invited.
“That was a little disappointing,” says Ryan, whose agent Matt Ebbs of Ottawa, is looking for a similar invitation for his client this fall.
“I’ve been trying to focus a little more on making sure I play more consistently this year. I just hope that it works out if I keep playing the way I’ve been playing.
“I think this year I had an even better year, so hopefully it will work out in the long run.”
Ryan evolved into the type of player this season the Mooseheads envisioned when they took him 19th overall in the 2010 midget draft. The rangy left-winger scored 21 goals and 18 assists and was a plus-18 in 56 games.
His numbers would be even better were it not for a torn MCL injury which sidelined him for nearly a month mid-season.
“It was a Grade 2 tear, so it wasn’t too serious. It was more of a precautionary thing that I stayed out that long,” explains Ryan. “We were doing so well they didn’t want to rush me back.”
Ryan was able to produce those numbers as a thirdline player for a deep Mooseheads club, one that includes Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin, projected as top five, maybe top-three, picks in the 2013 NHL draft.
“Some of the play that people see on the ice is stuff we see every day in practice,” Ryan said of the duo. “The amount of skill they have is a treat to watch.” Given their draft status, there’s a lot of media attention for MacKinnon and Drouin, but Ryan says they remain humble.
“We give them a bit of a hard time every now and then, but they’re good guys and they never put themselves ahead of the team or anything like that.”
A left-winger like Drouin, Ryan hasn’t seen much ice-time with hime or McKinnon, but on those rare opportunities he has, it’s required that he step up his own play.
“You have to bring your game up to be able to play with them,” he says
“They’re the kind of players that if you don’t think the pass is there, they’ll get the puck to you somehow.”
Ryan and the Mooseheads punched their tickets to the QMJHL semifinal round Thursday night with a 6-1 win over the Saint John Sea Dogs to complete the quarter-final sweep. Ryan had three points — a goal and two assists — in the four-game series.
“We have a lot of expectations for ourselves and so do a lot of other people.
“Right now, we know what we’ve got to do to be successful and we’re trying to stick to that plan and keep doing what we’ve done all year.”
“Hopefully, if everything works out, it won’t be as long a summer as it was last year.”