[devo22]

I feel Sven has been horribly mismanaged by the Flames so far. Not on a Nino Niederreiter or Brett Connolly level, but still pretty bad. A lot of that is hindsight of course, and just my personal opinion.

I agree with Feaster that in hindsight, the emergency recall was a bad idea. It created unrealistic hopes and expectations among the fan base, and more importantly, himself as well. That whole "Svensational" schtick put a lot of pressure on him, being the only real blue-chip prospect the Flames have had in some time and being expected to be a saviour or something like that.

Second mistake was giving him a roster spot in the lockout shortened season without having to earn it, and also without giving him a situation to succeed. He didn't have to win a spot, he was just given one ... at that time, Cervenka was still injured, and all he really had to do was beat Ben Street and invitee Brad Winchester. After making the team, he's buried in the bottom six with no PP time ... paired with the sky high expectations and pressure that the kid put on himself after that emergency recall, you pretty much had a recipe for disaster. Of course, that injury didn't help either. Best move would probably have been to keep him producing in the AHL until April, but again, hindsight is 20/20. Would have saved the Flames also that apparent Pentincton thing ... Sven shouldn't have played 25 NHL games at that point, plain and simple.

Third mistake was gifting him a roster spot once again this season, even after a poor preseason/training camp. They should have sent him down to start the season after that underwhelming showing ahead of the season.

The Flames have simply rushed this kid although he still has holes in his game, and I think Feaster and Weisbrod had their hands in this. Surely no coincidence that he got sent down on the day that Burke fired them. Maybe they felt it was important to have a young blue chipper in the lineup when you have to sell a rebuild, but for his development, they should have been more patient. Not every 1st round pick is NHL ready at 19/20, and for Sven's development, it surely would have been better to send him down at the start of the last two seasons instead of keeping him first and then crushing his confidence.

Still, I believe that Sven is a fine prospect. I think that he will tremendously benefit from having Monahan, Poirier, Klimchuk and whoever gets picked this year alongside him. That should take a lot of pressure off his shoulders. I don't think Sven's the kind of kid that will excel when he's THE guy to carry a team, but I believe he'll be very good if he has a few players with similar/higher pedigree alongside him. Just look at Portland - he didn't have to carry that team alone, but instead had Johansen, Niederreiter, Rattie, Ross and Leipsic to aid him.