[dying4acup]

Originally Posted by 868904

He had a great scoring chance early on that Price saved, but other than that, he just wasn't competing hard enough in the puck battles for me.

Johnny is always outmuscled in one on one board battles, but he gets right in there and competes, and sometimes wins the puck based on his quickness and creativity.

My observation of Sven last nite was that he would engage initially and then give up too easily. He'd get lost on the wrong side of the puck and give up. He needs to get back in there and chase that puck down.

When Johnny loses the puck or turns it over, he busts his ass to get it back. Sven needs to do that.

It's not about throwing a big hit or winning the puck battle, it's about how you compete, and it just wasn't there last nite. Maybe it was just being tired from the back to back, but even in previous stints, he's never been one to compete too hard in the dirty areas.

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Sven was invisible for the most part. If I wasn't following him specifically to see how he was performing, I wouldn't have noticed him at all except for that one scoring chance he had.

A few negative things did stand out to me:
- He looked slow out there. Hopefully it was just fatigue, but he was definitely slow.
- He continually lost puck battles. Over and over. Gaudreau finds a way to win some, not necessarily being physical, but being smart. Unless I lost sight of Baertschi while he was on the ice, I didn't see a single instance of him winning a battle.

Things I noticed that were positive:
- He seemed to have better defensive positioning than I last remember him. Seemed to go in more or less the right spots.
- Made a few nice passes, and definitely had great positioning in the offensive zone.

What I liked about Hartley is that he threw Baertschi out on a defensive zone faceoff when Montreal was pushing. He either trusted Baertschi out there, or wanted to test/push him. He did alright - didn't win a puck battle, but he tried.

It was just one game, and you have to wonder if he was overly-tired. Waiting to see how he does in the next game in terms of speed. He is not a physical guy and will never be, but he won't make it in the NHL if he isn't quick, and if he doesn't find a way to win puck battles. I don't expect to see much of him in the NHL this season. Next season is when the Flames will be forced to play him, and hopefully by then he will be a much more rounded player and will find ways to be effective in every zone.

Nobody can argue that Gaudreau isn't playing decent defensively. Or Jooris. It is not ok to have Baertschi here in the NHL when he can't play adequately either. There is a certain threshold I think that he needs to be at before he can become a player who finishes developing in the NHL, and last night's game showed that he wasn't quite there. Hopefully in however many games he does have left he does show that he has met or surpassed that threshold, and finds a way to make it impossible to send him down. He may have been tired, or he may take a few games to just 'get used to it again'. However, it is also disappointing in a way because you see rookies come in and have this incredible 'jump' in their games out of pure adrenalin and excitement - I didn't see that in Baertschi's game. Small sample size anyways, so let's see what Sven brings the next game or two.

I think anyone that is stating that he is being mishandled is wrong - he isn't NHL-caliber from what I saw yesterday and last season. There is zero reason to believe Hartley dislikes him, or even if he does, that he doesn't want Baertschi to succeed. This organization desperately wants this kid to succeed.

I think anyone that is saying he is busting is also wrong - this kid is super-talented and an incredibly hard-working player. Some players just take longer to develop, and I believe Feaster's mishandling of him last year was an issue that he is only starting to get over from a mental standpoint, and his body was simply not ready for the NHL (speed, strength) and the injuries were a bit concerning because I don't think he had adjusted his play to how he can succeed in the NHL.

Sven's issues are most definitely tied to concussions also. Not to mention his rib injury at the WC. He is shying away from contact. Now how is that PROPERLY fixed? In AHL? NHL? Coaching? Match ups?

There's no known cure for this yet!