From Curtis Zupke of the Orange County Register:
Gord Dineen, recently hired as coach of Ducks AHL affiliate Iowa, was an assistant coach with former AHL affiliate Portland last season and helped develop Ducks right wing Bobby Ryan (right).
Dineen was asked by XM Radio this week to evaluate Ryan’s ability to play full-time in the NHL right now.
Here was his take:
“There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s ready for the NHL,” Dineen said. “It’s a process with any of these young players. You can’t just go based on talent alone and he’s got oodles of talent … What he did for us in Portland last year in the playoffs, he basically put the team on his back. The sign of a good player, to me, is when he makes other players better. He just turned the rest of our team into a real, dynamic offensive team.
Read the entire entry from Ducks Blog here.
Crazy to think that Ryan was the second pick behind Sidney Crosby a few years ago, but the youngster is still heading in the right direction and this year is his opportunity to crack the Ducks’ top-six forwards group. He is big and strong and has a nose for the net, so he fits the Ducks mold quite well.
