Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Marsh
I have a few concerns about some of this. First of all, I don't think Backlund has just been unlucky. He's never been overly productive offensively. This season is only the fourth in his entire career that he's scored above 30 points. He turns 29 next month. I don't know about you, but I'm betting on a decrease in production over the life of the contract.
I'm not taking a huge risk when I predict that he may not hit 50 points again. He's only done that once in his career, and it's something that's going to become increasingly difficult as he continues to age. There has been a lot of evidence published that player scoring output is negatively correlated with age.
I agree that he's been an elite defensive player, and he can play on my team any day. I'm just suggesting that this contract may not appear to be as much of a bargain in years 4-6 as perhaps it seems to be today.
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Backlund has scored at an above 40 point pace 5 times in his career + a 50 point season.
Backlund has also scored at a 47-53 point pace over his last 3 seasons and that's despite the numbers showing he's been incredibly unlucky this season. It's fine if you don't think he's been unlucky but the numbers are proof.
Having one of the very best defensive players in the NHL on your team who can score 50+ points a season for only $5.35M a season is a steal.
Even if you only look at his point totals and rely on the eye test (although though's are always incredibly biased), he's still worth the payday. But in the analytics community, he's worth much more than what he got and it's simply a steal of a deal.