I’ve followed the draft for a long time. I didn’t hate the Backlund pick at the time, but I didn’t love it. I was wrong, I love this man. What a great player and great human. We got so lucky having Backs as our guy and our captain. Not quite good enough to get 11 retired, but Flames fans will love this guy forever
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If Backlund finds a way to play productive hockey in calgary for 3/4 more years and breaks Iggy's all time games played record (which will likely put him 4th on the scoring list) then I think his number should be retired
I know usually retired numbers are based on flashy high end performance and he's been just a solid journeyman but a guy playing for 19 seasons with the same team ending as the captain for 4 or 5 mentoring in a new generation through a rebuild - that's a strong case in my books.
Father time is against him now, probably plays out his contract and retires in two years after 17 seasons, 2nd in games played and 6th in scoring and ends up in the forever ring or whatever the heck they call it just missing out. The difference for me is if he gets past Iggy on games played.
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Hockey Stars in Cars - Mikael Backlund
