Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Meh. I will never get on board with the legend of Michael Backlund. The guy is way too inconsistent for my liking and sucks in the playoffs. Was invisible to terrible for a large part of this season. This team needs players that bring it every game not 30-40 games a season.
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He's playing other teams top players every night. He's going to have some nights where he just gets caved in, that's just how it is when you're going against other teams top lines.
I don't know if that's inconsistency - or if that's just a guy that's getting asked to play the tough minutes every night against the stars of the league.
And the majority of the time he actually comes out on top.
His poor playoffs are a bit overstated too.
In 18-19 he got Mackinnoned. He had a 52% xGF in that series, we had 17 HD chances for vs 9 against with him head to head against Mackinnon, but got outscored 0-3 because Mackinnon.
When Mackinnon was on the ice but Backlund wasn't then the Flames had a 23.1% xGF.
So some back luck for Backlund in that series but he was still easily the best option we have head to head against Mackinnon.
Last year overall he wasn't really the issue either. He was playing the toughest matchups with Tkachuk hurt, so the line was Reider-Backlund-Mangiapane.
Overall he was still +50% on Corsi, and xGF% but we were outscored 5-7 at 5v5.
Big thing though is when you're asking a guy to play the other teams top lines every night he's going to get scored on sometimes and have some bad games. That's just how it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by loob job
Leafs media is saying the Leafs need a guy like Bennett and they should go hard after him.
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I'll take one Nick Robertson please.