[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

It all depends on what you mean by "consistency," but it also applies to what type of player you wish to critique.

I define consistency as providing a performance that does not very greatly during an extended period of time. Consistency is knowing that you put a player out on the ice he is going to perform in a given manner and execute certain duties each and every time. This is also what coaches expect when they select players for their team.

I think you greatly exaggerate how much of a problem this is for his development (he is certainly not "wildly inconsistent").

No, I don't. Being a dominant player during one period, then being difficult to pick out in the next, is the textbook definition of wildly inconsistent. I think coaches can accept some variance in performance from game-to-game, but when that variance extends to shift-to-shift, the player becomes a wild card and untrustworthy. Baertschi looked good in the first, dominant in the second, and non-existent in the third. I don't think he even got a shift in OT. I'm sure Hartley was tickled by the second period but would have preferred three periods like the first over the performance he got throughout the game.

For me, I am very pleased to see that he looks much stronger, more confident, and seems to be making smarter plays so far this preseason. This is all very good news.

Baertschi does look bigger and stronger, which is a huge positive. I'm also glad you're happy, but I doubt the coaches share the excitement. Baertschi is competing against other players in this camp and some of them are showing to be further ahead in development, much of which is based on their consistency. Of the prospects I think look ready to play in the NHL I would say that Granlund, Reinhart, and Gaudreau are all well ahead of Baertschi at this point, and I think Gaudreau should spend a couple months in the minors himself. Baertschi has shown improvement, but he's still lacking the consistency that makes a guy a NHL player.