Quote:
Originally Posted by Parallex
... which puts him 5th amoungst fowards in scoring (2nd amoungst centers) while being 9th in average TOI. He's a good young legitimate NHL player, that's something the Flames should be acquiring not moving out. Even if he never makes a significant breakout offensively he's still a Bolland type quality player... that's nothing to sneeze at.
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The standards that some people keep are just so low.
This should have been Backlunds year.
- year 1 of a rebuild
- he should be approaching his best years offensively
- he is one of the more experienced players on this team.
Instead, a rookie that would not have made another teams roster at all is threatening to take his spot in the 3rd line not 20 games in, and another rookie clearly beat him.
He's actually 6th in scoring among forwards, while being 5th in total TOI, and the difference to four other guys is just one point. The guys that he is beating in points are mostly 4th liners (Colborne, Jackman, McGrattan, Bouma), rookies (Baertchi, Bouma, Colborne) or have played less games (Stajan, Jones, Baertchi, Jackman, McGrattan).
This is just not good enough at this point.
I also don't see how he can be considered a "Bolland type" center. I mean sure, Backlund is one of our leading PK guys, but our PK is 28th in the league, so again that's not the standard we should be keeping.
Backlunds two-way game is nothing special. If it would be, he should be our top defensive forward by a good margin, since this is one of the worst defensive teams in the league. Instead, Backlund is last in GA among forwards, with a +/- of -5, one of the worst on the team.
(Bolland is +3, which is among the best on his team.)
This all just basicly goes around the same point; while Backlund doesn't suck, neither defensively or offensively, he's also not trending up at all, and he would need to take a BIG leap either offensively or defensively to become a keeper on a good team. (Heck, even on an average team IMO.)