For the record:
I agree that benching Baertchi seems pointless.
I think the reason behind it is that Hartley (or Burke perhaps?) thinks we're too small with him in the lineup, as it's the only one that makes even remote sense. And that's not really a lot of sense, because he's not playing small. His speed more than makes up for his size most of the time, and makes it difficult for the opposition to use their size. This is opposite to what happens when you put a guy like Bouma with Hudler and Monahan, no matter how good they looked this game.
Benching Baertchi is not going to turn us into a big team. I really don't get his benching either, and I would much rather watch this team with him in the lineup.
But I also really don't get why this is suddenly the magical reason for all our woes, and really the amount of whining about it on CP is completely overblown.
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