Nicklas Backstrom is one of the most underrated stars in hockey today.
In Nicklas Backstrom’s twelve plus NHL seasons he is nearly a point per game player. Being nearly a point per game player for that long in hockey’s best league in the world is incredible. In the 918 games Backstrom has skated in he has put up 891 points. Impressive to say the least.
Yet when you look at his accomplishments or awards he’s won in his NHL career, he has next to nothing. Yes, I know, he’s won the Stanley Cup and that’s all that really matters. That not what I’m taking about here. Backstrom has won no major individual awards and has been named to one All-Star game.
As great as he has been and for as long as he has been great it’s almost criminal how underrated he still is.
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This season, the way it’s going so far I don’t see Backstrom getting his due. We are now twenty-three games into the season and Backstrom has had a very quiet season. It is possible to have a quiet season or stretch but still put up points. Take teammate T.J. Oshie for example. Early this season you would hardly see Oshie but he was still putting up goals.
Oshie has snapped out of that a little bit. He’s not as quiet and he’s still been able to pot a couple of goals. Backstrom on the other hand is still quiet. As a result of this he is on pace to possibly have one of the worst, if not the worst season of his career.
Twenty-three games into the 2019-20 season Backstrom has four goals and 14 assists for a total of 18 points. That doesn’t sound too bad, 18 points in twenty-three games. Four goals doesn’t sound great but he’s never been a huge goal scorer, even though he can do it.
With those stats he’s on pace for 64 points. In a full season where he has played the majority of his teams games Backstrom has never scored fewer than 65 points. Those 65 points came in the 2010-11 season. That was the season after the first round loss to the Montreal Canadiens. Alex Ovechkin went from 50 goals the year before to 32. Backstrom went from 101 points to 65. It was a year where the Capitals tried to get more defensive.
His 14 assists aren’t too bad. It puts him on pace for about 49 assists. That’d still be one of his lowest totals for his career but it would beat the amount he got in 2010-11 when he had 47 assists.
The goals are where Backstrom is slacking. I have hardly noticed Backstrom this season in terms of goal scoring chances. As a result he only has four goals (one of those goals being an empty net goal). His four goals puts him on pace to score 14 in an 82 game season and that would tie a career low. The other time he put up 14 goals was his rookie season in 2007-08.
As I said, Backstrom has never really been a huge goal scorer outside of the 2009-10 season where he scored 33. He’s scored 18 goals three times in his career and his career high outside of the 33 goals in 2010 is 23.
In a season where I was expecting the Capitals to struggle a little bit offensively I was hoping he would put up around 25 goals, at least. That looks unlikely, it’s not impossible though.
There is something I found quite shocking about Backstrom’s early season stats. Of his 18 points, six of them are at 5v5. While 5v5 he has one goal and five assists. Four of those assists are secondary assists. That doesn’t mean he’s not making plays, sometimes the secondary assists can be the bigger assists. For one of the best playmakers in the game I thought that was dumbfounding.
We can dive a little deeper into some stats if we want. He is currently seventh on the team in individual scoring chances, behind Ovechkin, Vrana, Eller, Wilson, Kuznetsov and Oshie. He’s tied for 3rd in individual high danger attempts with 17, tied with Vrana and Eller and behind Ovechkin and Wilson.
His advanced stats are fine. There have been 22 players that have played for the Caps this season, he is one of eight to have a Corsi% below 50%, but it’s just a tick under 50% at 49.54%. His scoring chance for% is just over 50% at 50.79%, that ranks 14th on the team. His high danger attempts% is 53.13% that ranks 4th on the team.
While 5v5 with Backstrom on the ice the Capitals have scored 12 goals and have been scored on 15 times.
It’s a contract year for the soon to be 32-year-old Swede. Taking that into account he’s picked a very bad year to have one of his worst seasons as a pro. There’s still time for him to rebound. A couple of impressive games from him and he’s back to where we’d expect, getting at least 60 points and nearly 20 goals.
So far, Backstrom just hasn’t looked very effective and hasn’t looked dangerous for large parts of the year. Lets hope that changes. If the Capitals want to return to the top of the NHL world they’re going to need number 19 playing good hockey.