Why the education of Sven Baertschi is a crucial story for the Canucks

Photo Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin/USA TODAY Sports

When general manager Jim Benning addresses the media on Tuesday, the Vancouver Canucks are widely expected to back off from the ‘rebuild-on-the-fly’ posture that has characterized their actions over the past three years.

When a team can’t credibly sell wins in their marketplace, they have to sell hope. They have to sell the learning process.

In this respect, there’s perhaps no better silver linings poster boy for the club than 23-year-old forward Sven Baertschi.

Acquired at the 2015 NHL trade deadline, Baertschi struggled to establish himself as an everyday player in the first few months of the season. He wasn’t scoring and was a regular healthy scratch.

Before fans and media could begin to write Baertschi off though, something happened, something genuinely positive. Baertschi began to figure it out at the NHL level.

“If you look at the start of the season, it wasn’t quite going as well for me,” Baertschi said at Canucks garbage bag day on Monday. “Expectations were there and I didn’t meet them – for myself and for what the coaching staff wanted for me. It was tough. For me, I had to make a change in my game. I had to adjust. I was getting sick of being in the lineup, out of the lineup.”

Baertschi took a hard look at himself and slowly learned that to be effective at this level, he had to pay the price. If he was going to avoid watching games in the press box and getting passed on the depth chart by the next Johnny Gaudreau, he had to make some changes.

The Swiss-born forward – a dominant playmaker throughout his junior career – realized that he was spending too much time on the perimeter, trying haplessly to dig the puck out of the corner. It wasn’t an area where he was likely to score from.

“The biggest adjustment I made was going to the net, being there, letting some other guys make plays and just waiting for the puck to come to the net – because at some point it has to come there,” Baertschi said on Monday. “That was a big adjustment for me.”

He also put the time in to work on his skating and improve his initial burst. It changed the way he processed the game, gave him the time and space he needed to let his natural creativity do the work for him.

“My first three steps have improved big time,” said Baertschi. “At the start of the season I was getting caught from behind all the time, so I wasn’t able to make plays, that was something that improved. Once I had that in my game and started making it a habit, the ice surface felt bigger to me – just because of my first three steps.”

Baertschi’s defensive game also improved, which opened things up for him offensively.

“(Defense) was the part of my game that accelerated the rest of my game,” said Baertschi. “I was playing well defensively and then I was out there for important situations, out there for maybe three more minutes than I was before. And those extra three minutes get you an extra shot, get you an extra who knows?

“You get used to the game you get used to how you have to play in this league. Before I didn’t know, I played with too much risk at times. That was something I had to change.”

That Baertschi took a critical look in the mirror and decided to alter his game takes the sort of maturity and thoughtfulness that’s crucial in player development. It’s something that escaped him, to some extent, earlier in his career.

“You can’t take it for granted,” Baertschi explained. “That’s what happened to me kind of in Calgary, that’s why I never really put myself in a good spot. Because I’d come into training camp and other guys would look better than on me on the left wing, they bring in Johnny (Gaudreau) and you get passed by those guys. Then it’s tough to get back into it.

“So for me, no matter what, I’m going to have to put in even more work this summer. Come into training camp in unbelievable shape and make sure that I keep the spot I earned toward the end of the season.”

To that end the skilled young forward has altered his summer plans somewhat. He’s still a few weeks away from being fully recovered from a late season knee injury, but in comparison with past seasons, he’s being mindful of how often he travels back to Europe – though he’ll still be in Switzerland for some of the summer, to host his hockey camp.

For Baertsch it’s all about building on this season and being mindful of precisely what it takes to keep his place as an everyday player in the toughest hockey league in the world. It’s also about figuring out his next contract.

The 23-year-old winger will need a new contract this season and with 15 goals and 28 points, he’s earned himself a raise. He’ll be a restricted free agent and he isn’t eligible for arbitration yet, which will restrain his value significantly. He’s hopeful that he’s done enough to earn a multi-year deal though.

“I haven’t heard anything from my agent…” Baertschi said of his contract status. “I think it’s something that’s going to happen in the next few days, I know I talked to Trevor and he’s happy with where my game is at. He’s always wanted me to have success here.

“I’m sure it’s not that far away,” Baertschi continued, “it should come up soon, and you’re obviously hoping to get as much as you can. Hopefully two years, that would be unbelievable.”

Whatever Baertschi’s next deal looks like, the sort of improvement he showed is crucial for a club that has next to nowhere to go but up. The story of his season isn’t as sexy or as satisfying or as compelling as a contending team’s, but these sorts of incremental individual improvements are what the Canucks are going to be selling during a rebuild.

Maybe it seems a bit thin, but at least for fans it’s something that can be billed as part of the journey.