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The Calgary Flames GM Jay Feaster and President of Hockey Operations Brian Burke met yesterday with the media to discuss the upcoming season, last minute cuts to their roster, and any other questions reporters fielded.
With those questions, came a few inquiries about the status of a higher profiled Flames player; Sven Baertschi. Most questions were quite simple as fans and media alike wondered just where Sven sat in terms of his development and overall team status, following a “weak” training camp and preseason.
If you’ve learnt anything with respect to Brian Burke’s character is that he will not hold back from telling you exactly how he feels about certain things, and apparently Baertschi was one such thing. Here are the comments directed at Sven after being asked of his progress with the team by reporters yesterday.
“There are three zones in the ice surfaces in this league. I don’t see that he’s learned to play and compete in two of them. He’s got to learn there’s a clock in this league and there’s so many minutes in the game and that you’ve got to compete through all of it. I see this is a guy who’s focusing on one area [scoring] and even then, sporadically,” Burke said. “So I don’t know what we have.
“I’m not ready to quit on a young kid. I’m not ready to throw him under the bus here today and rip him, but I think you can tell from my comments that I see big holes and I see a lack of commitment that’s not going to get him anywhere in my books.”
I suppose these comments can be taken differently, depending on the person. Some may argue that this is a wakeup call for Sven as they feel he has not been demonstrating a strong commitment to winning or hard work of late(something that will be very important to the team moving forward).
Others may say that the team is being a little too hard on the young rookie who has really not played a full NHL season to date and is still developing his game. Well, no matter how you slice it, the Flames brass do not seem to be impressed with his play and or work ethic so far. GM Jay Feaster even added to Burke’s comments with the following –
“Sven’s performance at that time? It just created such sky-high expectations,” Feaster said Monday. “(In a do-over) I wouldn’t have brought him in because then we don’t create the same kind of expectations — internally, externally, and even for himself. I think that experience . . . you start to believe, ‘I come in with a cape on, with an ‘S’ on my chest instead of a Flaming C.’ We still love him, but there’s a lot of work to be done, for him and us.
Since being drafted 13th overall in 2011 by the Flames, Baertschi has played a total of 25 NHL games with the club registering 13 points. Most of his experience came from playing last year as he posted 10 points in 20 games with Calgary when he was called up due to injuries. In those 20 games, Sven played and looked like a rookie with flashes of brilliance. Kind of hard to expect anything less from a 19 year old(at the time) with no real NHL experience.
Sven will enter the 2013-14 season as a full member of the Flames, for the first time in his career. Playing for a young rebuilding team he is expected to get a ton of ice time and opportunity to develop himself in all facets of the game, according to head coach Bob Hartley. As I previous mentioned, I expect a strong year from the young Swiss, whether that be in terms of points or development as a more well-rounded hockey player.
What do you guys think? Were the comments justified, were they a little too direct, unwarranted?
Thanks for reading!
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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