Love Backlund, great 2-way player, great Calgary Flame. I'd be happy to see a 5 year term, at the $5.5M or under AAV.
that being said, i think the flames have to be careful here. He is likely in the middle of his prime, as we speak. Where he's a very good 2-way Center, who gets 40-50 points. As early as the midpoint of that contract, he's likely back to closer to his career average for seasonal points which is ~30pts.
The other question mark is his health. I forgot how the first several seasons of his career, he always got hit with an injury. Touchwood, that appears to be a thing of the past, but does that pattern hold up as he ages.
The latter point aside, since no one can predict those things, will the flames be comfortable paying $5M-$6M a year to a third line Center who can get you 30'ish point a year? Again, ,not suggesting he will absolutely be reduced to a 30 point guy, but i think it has to be considered as a possible (if not probable) outcome.
I think i'm hoping the flames look at the extra cap room coming with the cap going up, and with some money coming off the books (stajan, versteeg, plus more if they decide to waive brouwer) and decide whether they pony up the $5M-$6M for backlund or perhaps look at what's in the market if they added a bit to this dollar value for another forward/center that may be out there.....
Opinion Alert: I think Jankowski could be the flames #2 line center as early as next season. As such, perhaps the flames can fill their #3 line Center needs by getting a pure defensive/fiesty type player a) thru UFA (lars eller, cogliano, letestu??) and leverage the saved funds on filling other holes or, b) perhaps thru a trade as we could look to use one of our Dmen (turris just got traded, henrique just got traded).
A lot of what i wrote is just shooting the 'ish, but i suppose my take is that there are several options on how the flames can treat filling that #2/#3 center position (depending on where they think Jankowski fits in). There is also some flexibility with the Cap and with trade worthy assets they have in their pocket to fill that role. Backlund is definitely a solid option, however, they are not in a desperate enough position to overpay on this.
<now i duck, as i know there's plenty of backlund lovers that will hate this post>
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