Quote:
Originally Posted by Resolute 14
While true, that doesn't necessarily mean he is egocentric or selfish. Personally, I think he is getting bad advice, most likely from his father. Dad's attitude is that Baertschi deserves an NHL spot now and has gone out of his way to ensure the world knows. Guaranteed he is telling Baertschi the same things.
So when you have guy who is still quite impressionable, who is frustrated at being demoted (as anyone would be), and is hearing from a trusted source that he deserves better, it becomes easy to believe. End result is that Sven doesn't go down to the AHL with a good attitude (implied by comments from minor league coaches that "his attitude has improved"), that cycles back up to Burke, Treliving and Hartley, and the whole thing snowballs.
So the questions going forward for Vancouver are (1) how do they manage daddy's ego, and (2) what happens if the Canucks expect structured play out of Sven tha the still isn't willing to do, and (3) what happens if they give him his top-six role and he fails to produce?
The Canucks feel he is worth the risk of a 2nd rounder. But what they are saying now is what we were saying three years ago. They have the advantage that he is three years more mature, physically and mentally.
|
I think the Canucks have three things that make this possibly less of a mistake for them than these projects usually are, they have Svens old coach from the last time he was playing well, so they assume, probably rightly, that he will be easier to 'fix', that there's established trust and also a built in counter to outside influences.
That Calgary didn't work out means both dad, Sven and the agent know this is potentially his last chance, regardless of whether they agree with his ice time role etc, he has to make this work to a large degree. That may well concentrate his attention on things.
They also have the twins playing well, I suspect the back up plan, if it looks like he isn't really getting it together, will be to play Sven with the twins for a while, they are great at making line mates look good, then they would then trade him as part of a package, I could see a Sven plus Kassian being attractive to a GM with serious injury issues or trying to retool on the fly.