Ryan Healey is a puck-moving defenseman with a high IQ and quality puck skills. He’s a strong skater with a smooth, powerful stride that allows him carry the puck in all three zones. His puck skills are a plus for him. He has good hands and can evade traffic while keeping the puck close to his body. He can be an effective facilitator in the offensive zone, delivering accurate passes to his teammates in quality scoring areas. He has the potential to run a power play unit at the next level, with his skating and puck skills he really benefits from the extra time and space being on the power play affords him. Defensively is where the concerns for him come into play. His physicality is far too inconsistent. He can become less engaged when the puck is brought up the boards or into the dirty areas and he struggled mightily all season long in loose-puck battles. In the defensive zone he has a tendency to drift out of position and follow the puck too much, allowing the opposing forwards a lot more time and space than he should. His drifting really hurts his game because he doesn’t have the active stick and physicality to recover and break up quality chances. Once he loses his man it’s game over for him. The defensive inconsistencies in his game are hard to ignore, but his flashes of upside really give him some hope to turn into an NHL player, and how he could intrigue an NHL team. He has the puck skills and offensive ability to play sheltered minutes with a lot of offensive zone starts and potentially play a role on the power play. When drafting in the later rounds teams tend to bank on upside and at the very least he has the potential to ‘boom’ to his game if everything goes right for him in his development.

– FCHockey’s 2022 NHL Draft Guide