Breaking Down Sven Baertschi's 2011-12 Points So Far

Flames fans have been keeping a close eye on 2011 first-round pick Sven Baertschi since his name was called by Jay Feaster on draft day.

Baertschi amassed 94 points in just 47 regular season games played, good for exactly two points per game with the Portland Winterhawks.

The breakdown of those points was as follows:

10 PP Goals

25 PP Assists

5 SH Goals

0 SH Assists

In total, 40 of Baertschi's points came on special teams and 54 at even strength, which I think is a pretty good ratio. Obviously a guy of his skill level is going to be spending a lot of time on the ice, which translates into a lot of powerplay time. What is encouraging is that he must also be receiving significant minutes on the penalty kill against the opposition's top players in order to score five times while his team was shorthanded.

In the post-season, Baertschi has scored six times and accumulated 24 points in 14 games (about 1.7 PPG) before tonight's contest, as his team seems to be cruising to victory with a 3-0 series lead over the Tri-City Americans in the WHL's Western Conference Final.

Of Baertschi's 24 post-season points, 17 of them have come at even strength. His special teams points break downs as follows:

1 PP Goal

6 PP Assists

0 SH Points

This is the better ratio to be sure, but obviously a smaller sample size than that represented by his numbers in the regular season.

Of course, none of this includes his three even strength points (all goals) in five games for the Flames in March of this past season, which is ultimately more important when evaluating a prospect's potential for success in the big leagues.

Baertschi's ice time increased fairly significantly after his first game with the Flames, but the level of competition he faced mostly remained the same. He faced the fourth easiest quality of competition of all Flames forwards and was in the red in Corsi in every game but one, but fared slightly better in terms of scoring chance data. However, his offensive zone start percentage was only 28.6%, the lowest of all Flames forwards. All of this is probably rendered irrelevant considering the fact that he only played five games and that he's nineteen years old and may not play a significant amount of games at the NHL level until next season or even the season after, but it is still interesting to look at how he has fared thus far.

There seems to be little doubt that Baertschi will continue to build success at the WHL level if he does indeed remain there for as long as he is eligible, but how that will translate to a full AHL or NHL season depends on a variety of factors, and is something I will attempt to delve into at a later date.

(Numbers from whl.ca, Behind the Net, Time on Ice, and Flames Nation.)