Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
It's the bolded part that I strongly disagree with. If he is going to succeed at the NHL level, he has to have a deeper game than what he currently has. Playing with 3rd line checking players is exactly what you do to teach young players that. The Flames were trying to help him and he threw it back at them.
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That's
your version of the narrative based on what
you saw. I saw a guy that was flat out a better and more complete hockey player now than he was two years ago, regardless of what the numbers officially suggested, but due to the player he was
before, he was now relegated to playing on a line
centered by Brandon Bollig or Lance Bouma.
The kind of scenario where I don't know what you could really expect out of anyone, because Bollig is absolutely brutal and Bouma is simply a winger too.
Anyone-Bollig-Bouma
Now sure if you put a guy like Backlund on that line that can succeed because Backlund is a veteran NHL center who I think could be the 2nd best C on some VERY high level teams. Baertschi is a young winger still trying to make his mark. So it was just a line with three wingers that makes no sense. That's a checking line, but it's one that can't functionally get out of its zone without a 22 year old playing at an elite level. You wanna talk corsi? That's two guys who are under 40% on the season and yet Baertschi is supposed to pull miracles?
The only times he played with an actual center was when he was plopped in with Paul Byron, who is 35% on faceoffs this season and SMALLER than Sven. Oh, and the opposite winger on that line was Setoguchi, a guy who's had 25+ goal seasons before but could even register a single point all season.
Anyone-Byron-Setoguchi
That's not a checking line. It's just a crappy line set up for failure. And even then, they weren't nearly as bad as they should have been. Which some might call a miracle.
Is that a line set up to succeed? I don't think so.
The frustrating thing isn't that Sven was put on bottom lines, but that he was put on lines that are set up to fail regardless of whether he's Sven Baertschi or Johnny Gaudreau.
We have had centers this season who can play center functionally and let wingers play:
Monahan
Backlund
Stajan
Colborne
Jooris
Shore
Guys I'd be happy to have slotted Sven with on ANY line - 3rd, 4th. Of them, the only time Sven was put in a position to succeed was with Jooris for 4.5% of the season.
I can name which game that was too, it was the Winnepeg game and that line was
successful. Sven later got a ticky tack call, found himself in the penalty box, and was effectively done for the game (and season) due to it.
I would have totally welcomed a 4th line of
Baertschi-Stajan-Bouma
Baertschi-Stajan-Colborne
Baertschi-Stajan-Wolf
Baertschi-Stajan-Ferland
Baertschi-Stajan-Byron
Baertschi-Stajan-Jooris
anything like that because they would have made sense. What we actually saw made no sense. Yes Stajan was out with injury but Jooris was still there. Corbin Knight was still there.
It seems Hartley punished Sven for not being a center or a big bruising winger.
It's not about Sven stepping up to the challenge of playing hard in the minutes he was given. It's about Sven being set up to fail.
As for the AHL, people are quick to point to "regressed stats" but fail to mention that
sometimes guys are just snakebitten - and the entire ADK team was early in the season. Sven was scoreless in his first 7 games. That also means however that he's put up 26 points in his last 30 AHL games. What a lazy, terrible season he's had
I'm mostly just annoyed at the idea that "Sven didn't progress in the last two years". He's a better 2-way player now than he ever was in October 2013. And
that was when he was throwing up a point every other game in the NHL.
That said, I'm pretty much done with this back and forth argument about Sven that won't actually conclude until he's either dropping 30/30 seasons as the next Zach Parise or looking to hopefully crack a roster in the Swiss National League A. No point whining about it anymore, but I guess you can say I expect Baertschi to blow up as a Canuck into a very solid Havlat type. I don't like the Canuck part one bit.