Jiricek makes me cringe just a bit. Aside from his camp believing he deserved to play last year, I think he has such a long ways to go skating wise to be effective consistently.
I'm not sure he's really "earned" anything at this point but perhaps he's referring to practice.
That's more than likely the case and that's where it's gonna be earned. Busting your ass in practice and in the weight room is the only place you can earn it when you're the 7/8th man.
Should he be in Cleveland? Yeah probably, but if its between Mateychuk or Jiricek, I'm glad Jiricek is up if only for the fact that they want to make sure Mateychuk is properly seasoned and conditioned before calling him up. It's pretty obvious if he can stay healthy he's gonna be an NHL pro, so let's make sure he's going to transition well both physically and mentally before bringing him up full time.
I do think Jiriceks style of play could actually work out well with Evason having the D play aggressively in the offensive zone. But Jiriceks style of play means he's gotta be able to get back after jumping in. If he can play confidently in both ends I think he could really excel, but that's entirely dependant on his skating and conditioning being on another level than we've seen. So we'll see...