E.L. wrote:
Former Avs and Habs D Ryan O'Byrne calls it a career. Spent the last three seasons in the KHL, Swiss League and Swedish League.
A surprising 3rd round pick at the time. He was an unknown, very raw big man out of Cornell and even though he was never coordinated enough to be an elite guy, 300 NHL games isn't too bad.
He was a good get at the time, ended up being probably the best defensive partner John-Michael Liles ever had, but then they ended up trading Liles away and replaced him with Jan Hejda. The team immediately became a slow, lumbering dump-and-chase club. Travis Yost, as Bosc pointed out to me, tweeted about how the Avs actually played Hejda and O'Byrne as a pairing quite a bit. I have to revise my answer though as I'm pretty sure the Avs were tanking, but they of course traded away their first rounder (Filip Forsberg) in the Varlamov deal. So in actuality there was no logical reason to pair those two guys together. Don't get me started on the rest of that draft.
I think he would've been a better and more successful player had he just been born about 5-6 years earlier. He seemed very out of place once the emphasis on speed and skill began to increase.
I know I've beaten this dead horse into the ground but I will never, ever forget Vigneault and the Canucks successfully employing the "O'Byrne Lock" back when the Canucks absolutely embarrassed the Avs anytime they faced off. Basically the kept the puck away from Liles and other puckmovers and let O'Byrne have it, surrounding him with all three forecheckers so he couldn't dump it or pass it. Brilliant strategy that totally hamstrung the Avs--Sacco had absolutely no counter move.
One other highlight--I believe Ryan O'Byrne to be the only guy I've ever seen completely flatten Zdeno Chara. So he's got that going for him. I think most everyone has forgotten the purse incident.
BTW, is Bournival even in the NHL anymore? The Avs actually traded up to get him in the third round, then traded him away for ROB, which seemed odd. I know he was never meant to be a star but I always felt he'd become a worthwhile NHLer.