Depends on a few moving parts, including his salary demands and performance of certain players. If he's asking for too much, then you trade him. Trading him will be easier if Sam Bennett steps up and proves to be a second line center. Having Stajan, Jankowski, and Lazar as possible centers on the 3rd and 4th lines helps the loss that much more. To me it boils down to where the team believes he's going to fit in long term. I believe he's a third line center in the future, and you have to pay him in that range. So anything more than $4.5M and I think he has to be traded. If Bennett doesn't step up in the first couple of months of the season, and is instead trending toward that third line center, then you can up the ante and maybe offer an extension to Backlund in the $5-6M range as a second line center. There are a lot of moving parts here, and much of that will shake out before Christmas. If things go according to plan, Backlund could be made expendable before the trade deadline. A lot of "ifs" there though.
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