Can Nicklas Backstrom Become The Highest Scoring Swedish Player Ever

To start the season Nicklas Backstrom was playing mostly average hockey.

Nicklas Backstrom wasn’t playing bad but the Washington Capitals center wasn’t playing that great. That average play I think showed up in his 5v5 production. In his first 23 games of the season he had just 6 points while at full and even strength. He had 18 points total in those 23 games.

He has since been injured and returned, and returned he has. In the 7 games since coming back he has 9 total points and 5 of those are at 5v5. Five 5v5 points in 7 games compared to 6 5v5 points in the first 23 games. He has definitely picked it up since coming back.

Backstrom also hit a couple of milestones recently. Earlier this season he played 900 games. Just a few days ago he played his 900th game with Alex Ovechkin. And in that 900th game together Backstrom scored four points. That’s important because he scored his 900th point while scoring that fourth point.

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Backstrom became the 7th Swedish player to ever crack 900 career NHL points. He joins the likes of the Sedin’s, Mats Sundin, Daniel Alfredsson, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Henrik Zetterberg. Not a bad list if you ask me.

It got me thinking though. Where will or could Nicklas Backstrom finish? As great as Backstrom has been his entire career, and as criminally underrated as I think he is, for some reason it never really sunk in that we’re watching one of the greatest Swedish hockey players of all time.

Take away the team awards he’s won. Notably the Stanley Cup and an Olympic silver medal. When his career is said and done Backstrom will likely be the best or second best Swedish player ever, at least statistically.

At 32 years old he has exactly 900 career points. This season he’s on pace to score 67 points, that would have likely been higher had he not missed nine games. If he scores 67 points he’ll end the season with 940 points.

That won’t be good enough to catch 6th place Henrik Zetterberg who ended his career with 960 points. Backstrom won’t be done though, with the kind of player Backstrom is he likely has at least three good years left where he’s doing exactly what he’s doing now. That’s a good 65-80 points a year.

When doing things like this I always like the aim low. Give Backstrom two more seasons at exactly 60 points. That gives him 120 more points. In that case that puts him at 1,060 points. If that happens he’d be fifth all time in Swedish scoring passing Zetterberg, and Daniel Sedin (1,041) and he would have Henrik Sedin dead in his sight.

Again, lets aim low for the next two seasons. Let’s give him another 50 and 40 points in his 35-year-old and 36-year-old season. I’ll do the simple math for you, that’s 90 more points and that puts him at 1,150 points.

With those 1,150 career points he’d be third all time in Swedish scoring. He’d pass Sedin (1,070) and Lidstrom (1,142). He also be on Daniel Alfredsson’s tail. Alfredsson finished with 1,157 career points.

He’s probably unlikely to catch Mats Sundin, he is the highest scoring Swede of all time with 1,349 points. At this point you could probably give Backstrom 80 more points, that’d put him at 1,230 career points and he’s now starting to get into his very late 30’s and close to 40.

But you never know. Like I said, we’ll aim low. He could score a couple of more 70 point seasons, which I wouldn’t bet against and stay in the 60’s and 50’s longer. If he does he actually has a great chance to catch and pass Sundin and become to highest scoring Swede ever.

Bottom line, don’t take for granted watching this superstar Caps fans. In an era where sports fans only care about championships and how many awards someone has won we forget why we love sports in the first place. Entertainment and watching these incredible athletes do unbelievable things.

We might also get lost in Alex Ovechkin who is trying to beat one of the hardest records to ever beat in the all time goals scored. That deserves attention, obviously.

But while one of the best players ever tries to take down that record, don’t forget about his partner in crime Nicklas Backstrom who is already one of the best Swedish players ever. At the end of the day, we might be calling him the best ever from the great land of Sweden.