Quoting: RazWild
Boldy, Stutzle, and Fiala are far... far... better players than Bobby Ryan ever was.
Bobby Ryan is closer to Frederic Gaudreau or Ryan Hartman than a legitimate top-six player like Fiala.
They're not even close.
The difference is Spezza is Spezza, and Ryan rode his coattails. Fiala was a 70 point pace player before Boldy arrived and dealt with bottom six scrubs during that same timespan. He's closer to Stutzle than to Ryan.
C'mon.
Ryan didn't ride on Spezza's coattails. They didn't even play together that much. People anticipated great things between them but they didn't have any chemistry so they were split quite fast. Ryan mostly played with McArthur and Turris in his first few years in Ottawa and that was a great line, until each of these players got derailed by injuries (MacArthur with concussions, Turris with the Gumby incident, Ryan with hands injuries)
Why people continue to talk without knowing has always been beyond me.
Quoting: sensibleguy
Kevin Fiala (career 419 games)
419 games, 124 goals, 159 assists, 283 points, 0.68 PPG
Bobby Ryan (first 419 games of his career)
419 games, 165 goals, 159 assists, 324 points, 0.77 PPG
What a weird comment that was... Bobby Ryan was a 55+ pts / 0.70+ PPG player the first 8 years of his career. He did that in years where there was a lot less goals scored. That was first line numbers back then.
During his prime (2008-09 to 2015-16), he was the 37th best scorer among NHL forwards, with 437 pts in 584 GP (similar production to Bergeron, Duchene, Jagr, Couture, etc during that period of time)
Several hands injuries (and personal problems) is what made him decline in his late 20's. Who knows how long Fiala's prime is going to last? Or if teams are going to figure out ways to reduce goals against, once again.
Even if you don't account Fiala's first 4 seasons (0.48 PPG player with Nashville), Fiala has been the 27th best forward scorer since his "peak" started in 2019-20. It's great but the hyperbole was ridiculous
If you start comparing at the "same age" (21 years old), then Fiala has been 55th in forwards scoring since 2017-18