Who’s The New Guy?

So the Calgary Flames called up Sven Baertschi this week, in the midst of roughly a thousand other transactions to supplement an injury-devastated forward corps. There were a lot of ho-hum names, but after some initial confusion, Baertschi caught my eye. I didn’t remember him right away, but he seemed familiar.

For those that are unaware (as I was initially), Bartschi was the Flames’ first round pick in the 2011 draft, at 13th overall. His professional career in North America doesn’t have much length as of yet, but his NHL.com player profile shows a history with the SC Lagenthal hockey club, which is in the National League B in the Swiss professional hockey league (not to be confused with National League A, a higher grade).

Though he was recruited by teams in the A league, he came to North America, and was chosen second overall by the Portland Winterhawks in the WHL import draft in 2010. He also played with the Swiss under-18 hockey team for the World Championships in 2009 and 2010, and again for Switzerland at the World Juniors in 2011 and 2012.

Though he’s making a huge jump from the WHL to the NHL, the Flames are hoping Baertschi can add a little offensive punch to a team that’s been decimated by injuries up front of late. He has a staggering 33 goals and 61 assists in a mere 47 games with Portland, having missed some time earlier in the season to injury. We’ve talked previously about the lack of offensive punch among the Flames’ prospects, and Baertschi looks like another exception to that rule. I certainly prefer rolling the dice with Bartschi to trying another AHL call-up without much of an offensive game, given the state of the Flames’ forwards.

There was some praise for the new guy after his debut yesterday.

From Coach Brent Sutter:

“I thought he handled it well. He’s a very confident young man in his ability. He played nine, nine-and a-half minutes and I thought he did a really good job for us under tough circumstances.”

And do-everything forward Curtis Glencross:

“He’s going to be one of the players that is going to be in this organization for a long time. Looking at him out there, he’s not a very big guy but he’s not scared to get in the corners. He’s very skilled. He’s got great speed. We’ve all had our first NHL games and he’s got his first NHL game before a lot of people do.”

We should keep an eye on Baertschi over the next few games, given his status as one of the team’s elite prospects. We’ll likely see more of him at Abbotsford next year, and when he does crack the Flames lineup, hopefully he can provide some of that offensive creativity that they don’t have a lot of.

Go Flames Go!