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Report: Sens’ Ryan spent last season battling digestive illness

BobbyRyan

Bobby Ryan has classified his disappointing 2013 campaign as a “write-off.”

Now, we might know why.

In an interview with Team 1200 in Ottawa, NBC’s Pierre McGuire said Ryan was sick most of last year with an unspecified illness.

“I don’t know if Bobby wants this out there, but I’m going to put it out there anyway in the interest of proper information dissemination -- Bobby Ryan was sick most of last year,” McGuire explained. “He had a really tough time with an illness that they eventually traced, believed it or not, to a trip he took over to the far east.

“It was something with his digestive system, and it was a real problem for him. He’s healthy now, he’s 100 percent and I know he’s really excited about being [in Ottawa].”

Ryan, 26, scored 30 points in 46 games for the Ducks last year and his 0.65 points per game average was the lowest he’s posted since breaking into the NHL in 2007-08.

Late in the year, Ryan was sent home from a road trip with what was classified as the flu.

“First of all, we didn’t want anybody else catching anything,” Anaheim head coach Bruce Boudreau told the OC Register at the time. “And we wanted to make sure that he gets better. He just had a stomach virus.

“He’s getting better, which is a really good sign. I’m sure he’s going to be with us Friday. Hopefully play Saturday [season finale against Phoenix].”

Ryan did return for the ‘Yotes game (scoring a goal) and Anaheim’s opening-round playoff loss to Detroit. He scored four points in seven games, but only played more than 17 minutes once.

Of note, Ryan’s regular-season ice time was down to 16:35 in 2013 after averaging 18:21 TOI per game in 2011-12.