Is the present surge because of this?
That is not beyond the realm of possibility imo but not sure it would be because of this, they stole the coin in the first place not sure they care about the price difference of a few dollars.
To answer about Ulbricht i am not sure he would easily get them back but in the end if he was doing what he done first time around with better security procedures then i see no reason why he would not make a large amount of them back.
What would be the point though he was to greedy and could not leave with tens of millions the btc was wasted on him.