Quote:
Originally Posted by MVW
I think Sven had a slow start in the AHL for 2 reasons.
1) He played his off wing, &
2) Ward spent a lot of time with him teaching him the defensive part of the game. Baertschi was behind others such as Granlund and Reinhart in regards to knowing the system down there, so when he was first sent down his focus was on defence, which obviously affected his production as we see with most forwards playing that kind of role.
I get why people have concerns, but I'm not, if anything I'm more excited about him now because I know he's going to be a more complete player. His skills didn't just disappear.
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In regards to point 2, Troy Ward has confirmed as much when interviewed on the FAN 960.
It wasn't because he wasn't good enough, they intentionally put him in a role to develop his defensive game, knowing that he was already great offensively.
They were trying to make a good player great.