Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
I get that a lot of fans get emotionally attached to long term players but I don't and he's been consistently inconsistent his entire career. When I see an organization that's had little success for over a decade I start looking hard at guys that have been there the longest. Gio can say he won a Norris, was team captain and had a solid run of great play. Backlund like the team over his tenure has consistently oscillated between between good and bad, never good enough to be that 2nd line center of a cup contender and if fans truly want a culture change I can't think of a better place to start. He's much better in a 3rd line role but over $5 million for a 3rd line center is a luxury I'm not sure this team can afford when they are rotating pressbox players in and out of the top 6.
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I’m not emotionally attached to any one player on this team at this point, maybe Johnny Gaudreau if I had to choose someone. But it’s more about the crest on the jersey and if Gaudreau or Backlund or whoever has to be traded to improve the team, then so be it, I would understand.
In Backlund’s case though, it’s not what I or anyone else thinks, it’s what the coach thinks and like I said, he’s looking like Darryl’s #1 center right now based on minutes played. So it’s more like Backlund is this team’s $5M no.1 center and Monahan is the $6M luxury 3rd line center. Don’t know if this changes or not, but Sutter seems to really like Backlund, so again, I don’t think there’s a chance he gets exposed and I have felt the same way for a long time now.