Quote:
Originally Posted by CGY12
As much as I like Backlund I'm not giving him anywhere close to 6 million. He was absolutely fantastic this year during the season but part of the reason we lost is because he is our 2nd line centre. He doesn't have the offensive ability to be paid that amount of money or be a player you can count on in the playoffs to create during crunch time. Absolute perfect 3rd line centre but nothing more. I wouldn't even trade him because you aren't going to get some crazy player in return either.
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I think you're really underselling Backlund here. Comparing the years of 3rd line centres of some of the top teams in the NHL this year, Backlund vastly outscores all of them. While I understand that this has been a good year for him, I think it's disingenuous to call Backlund offensively a perfect 3rd line centre based on this year he just had. Bergeron had the same amount of points and he most definitely would be considered a top line centre.
Calgary: Mikael Backlund (22G/31A/53P)
3rd Line Centres:
Washington: Lars Eller (12G/13A/25P) $3.5M
Pittsburgh: Nick Bonino (18G/19A/37P) $1.9M
Anaheim: Antoine Vermette (9G/19A/28P) $1.75M
Chicago: Marcus Kruger (5G/12A/17P) $3.08M
San Jose: Tomas Hertl (10G/12A/22P) $3M
Edmonton: Mark Letestu (16G/19A/35P) $1.8M
He's definitely more comparable offensively to the 2nd line centres, while maintaining a heavy defensive workload. He's obviously below the high end centres (Malkin, Kuznetsov), while being comparable to the rest of the centres on the list.
2nd Line Centres:
Washington: Evgeny Kuznetsov (19G/40A/59P) $3M
Pittsburgh: Evgeni Malkin (33G/39A/72P) $9.5M
Anaheim: Ryan Kesler (22G/36A/58P) $6.875M
Chicago: Artem Anisimov (22G/23A/45P) $4.55M
San Jose: Logan Couture (25G/27A/52P) $6M
Edmonton: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (18G/25A/43P) $6M
Based on these numbers, $5M would be a steal and $6M would probably be about (or just below) market value.