Quote:
Originally Posted by RyZ
Outside of his disasterous first 20 or so games when he was sent down last year, he is about a point per game AHLer. Depending on your definition of "dominant", he is pretty good at the AHL level offensively.
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The question has always been whether this was good enough for a player like Baertschi. He is easily a more naturally skilled player than Max Reinhart, and yet struggled to keep pace with Reinhart offensively in the AHL. Of course, part of the reason for that was his focus on development on the defensive side of the puck, which has improved tremendously But I would suggest that the Flames legitimately want to see more.
I don't get the sense from any of the interviews with management and coaches that anyone is disappointed in Baertschi or in any way concerned about his development. On the contrary, it does seem like there are only a handful of small gaps for him to fill in his game, and the belief is that the best place for him to do that is in Adirondack, and not the Flames' press box.