Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Well, that's one way to interpret things.
PMM was dead on with what I saw, and it has to keep coming back to what Baertschi did and did not do in the AHL. The Flamesnation piece ignores that crucial bit entirely.
Also, I have often felt that Baertschi never looked the same following some pretty serious injuries in 2012/13(?). He has not looked as fast, nor as strong on his skates, and he seems to lack patience with the puck now where he once did not.
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I could not get over this season how easily he was muscled off the puck. Even a smaller player like Gadreau puts up a decent fight in the corners and you could just see that Johnny has that added dimension of speed and shiftiness to his game that Sven doesn't appear to have at the NHL level. Flames fans have to ask if trading him is a loss at all to this franchise as who's spot on the LW was he going to take next year? Was he going to beat out Poirier, Ferland, Raymond, or Bouma? Say what you want about Raymond but it's hard to imagine Baertschi outplaying him next season given what we saw of him in the AHL and NHL.