Bichsel is playing SHL where development of Swedish players is priority and obviously, when in doubt, Leksands isn't gonna play the Swiss kid over Swedish players
This was some bullshit theory if ever I did see it. Firstly, prospect development is not the highest priority among SHL teams: it’s a professional league and winning games is prioritized over player development. If there’s value in playing a prospect, from both development and competitive perspectives, they will get plenty of ice time, and there’s no incentive for SHL teams in playing an inferior Swedish player over a superior foreign one. Leksand will receive transfer money once Bichsel signs an NHL contract, they’re thus playing him in ways they deem best for his development. In his case, he seems to have received a mostly regular but sheltered role on the team.
Also, they probably don't want to rush a young kid who also suffered some horrible injuries over the last months. For example, his concussion was really bad. Therefore he doesn't get any PP-time which does impact his stats. If you're just stat watching that could be misleading
This is more plausible, at least the part of not overplaying a kid with recent injury history. However, Bichsel plays a lot of PK, so I don’t think injuries are the reason why he’s not seeing PP time. He’s been Leksand’s second most utilized defenseman on the PK for the last ten games. Leksand seems to value his defensive play but see better options on the PP and ES. Him being foreign, again, I have no reason whatsoever to believe plays into his utilization. Five out of Leksand’s seven most utilized players on the PP are foreigners.
Still, from what I gather, Bichsel does play top4 when fully healthy and that was the case last season already. Not many foreign kids get to play top4 in the SHL.
He averages just under 16 minutes of ice time per game for the last ten games (compared to under 12 minutes on average for the entire season: he’s earned bigger minutes as of late), which however is sixth among Leksand defensemen: not top-4.
Junior players rarely have top-4 assignments in the SHL, period: it has nothing to do with them being foreigners, they would have to be standouts to earn big minutes in the SHL. Moritz Seider understandably played huge minutes for Rögle; Dean Kukan and Christian Jaros were eventually top-4 defensemen for Luleå, but perhaps not aged 18 or 19.
Over the last ten games, Bichsel is the 2nd most played under-20 defenseman in the SHL, behind HV71’s Sjöholm who’s a year older than the Swiss kid. There’s no reason to claim he’s being biased against because of being a foreigner.