It's the time of the year where the mind wanders. Not much is going on in the hockey world and most of us are twiddling our thumbs waiting for early September. The time when players start to trickle back into their team's cities and training camps are just around the corner.
This time my mind wandered to Washington Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom. I got to thinking how Backstrom had a few instances of very annoying things happening to him during his career.
Most players will have annoying things happen to them. If you're lucky or blessed enough to have a long career you're going to have those moments that make you go, "...really?" those kinds of moments we all have, right? When you have a successful sports career you just hope you don't have many of those.
I don't necessarily know if Backstrom has a lot of those moments, but he did have a couple of big ones in my opinion. For a player that was as good as he was it's unfortunate that he did too. His career could have been even more special but a few moments got in his way.
I think Nicklas Backstrom had some stupid luck in his career and we're here to show of couple of instances of that.
Before we go any further I do want to point something out. Backstrom did have a tremendous career. Even if he did have some big, annoying times in his career, boohoo. He looks to finish his career with nearly 300 career goals, well over 700 career assists and he played over 1,000 career games in the best hockey league in the world. Terrific numbers for a special player and from all I've heard a special person. What we're going to talk about today isn't trying to take away from what he accomplished during his career.
Wrong Place At The Wrong Time
Sports need a lot of luck. I know there are a ton of people out there that think winning championships or going on long playoffs runs is all about brute force. "If you're the best then go prove you're the best and if you lose then you clearly were not that good to begin with." The caveman thought process of a lot of sports fans. There are a lot of great teams that did not win. Like, I don't know, the Washington Capitals.
Backstrom was on a lot of great Capitals teams. He won just one Stanley Cup in his career. He and his Capitals teams could have won more Championships. They simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time in several instances. Lets gets a few instances out of the way quickly. They lost to a Pittsburgh Penguins team that ended up winning the Stanley Cup three times. They lost to the Penguins in 2009, 2016 and 2017. Those were some excellent Penguins teams.
Another instance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time was 2010. Most Capitals fans know what happened that year. The Capitals were the runaway best team in the league that season. Then lost in the first round. They lost to a Montreal Canadiens team that played them pretty well in the last part of that series and they had a hot goalie that knocked out one of if not the best team in Capitals history.
It wasn't a fluke either. That same Canadiens team went on and knocked out the defending Stanley Cup Champion Penguins team the next round.
Luck. You need it. The Caps were great almost for the entirety of Backstrom's career. Just avoid the Penguins once. Maybe he has more Cup rings. Maybe if Jaroslav Halak doesn't go into hockey god mode for a few games and the Capitals celebrate a cup win early in the careers of Ovechkin and Backstrom.
There are a lot of great teams and players who did not win because they went up against a dynasty or a player at the worst time possible. Thankfully Backstrom did get to win a Cup, but he could have won more if not for a couple of unlucky situations.
Allergic To Gold Medals
To play in the Olympics is a massive accomplishment. From what I have heard in the past European players dream of playing in the Olympics and World Championships. North American kids mostly dream of playing in the NHL and winning Stanley Cups, the Olympics is just a bonus and incredible honor. The World Championships is an after thought here. A "loser" tournament for those who didn't make the playoffs or got knocked out early. Even then some great players simply chose to not go.
In 2014 Backstrom had the opportunity and probably had a dream come true. He was playing in the Olympics, and he was getting ready to play in the gold medal game. He was sixty good minutes away from potentially winning an Olympic gold medal.
Not only did he not win the gold medal, he didn't even play in the game. He wasn't hurt. He wasn't suspended for a bad play on the ice. He was banned for taking an illegal substance. A substance he apparently had used for years.
I'm not good with medicine and medical jargon so I will spare you my explanation as much as possible. But according to the article linked above Backstrom had taken Zyrtec-D. An allergy medication, a medication he had taken for seven years.
Seven years, meaning Backstrom had played in four IIHF events without being banned for taking this medication. Three World Championships and another Olympic Games in 2010. Then of course all of the 2014 games before the gold medal match.
But they found this illegal substance just before the final game in 2014 and he was not allowed to play. Crushing! I can't imagine potentially having a childhood dream taken from you that way.
Again, we can kind of go "boohoo". Oh it must suck to sit there with an Olympic silver medal in your trophy case. Heck even if he played was that Swedish team going to beat that 2014 Canadian team? Probably not. That Canadian team was special.
But to have that moment, the chance to play in an Olympic final, taken from you, just because you have taken a medication that you have taken for years. What kind of stupid luck is that? It's something that would bother me for the rest of my life. I don't know about you.
A Career Ending Injury?
This isn't confirmed. Backstrom could still come back and play hockey at some point. Who knows. It doesn't look promising though. If we're talking about him playing next season, at least for the Capitals, that looks very, very unlikely. With the moves they have made this offseason Washington essentially has to put Backstrom on LTIR just to be cap compliant.
According to PuckPedia, the Capitals are more than $10 million over the cap. Putting Backstrom on LTIR frees up over $9 million. I don't know how you free up enough space to allow Backstrom to play. Unless he and the Capitals play the cap shenanigan game and he plays in the playoffs next year.
But this is what every athlete, professional or not fears isn't it? Sure, we all hope to go out on top. Playing great, winning a championship and riding off into the sunset. I would say 99.9% of people don't get that opportunity. At the least you hope to go out on your own terms.
You hope you are the one who decides to retire. You are the one telling teams, "No thanks, I'm done!" or something along those lines. You hope it's not your body telling you, "hey, no more!" that sucks. Unfortunately, it looks like that has happened to one of the best to ever slip on a Washington Capitals jersey.
Backstrom had dealt with a hip injury for years. It was pretty clear something was wrong. While he was never the fastest player on the ice, the last couple of years he bluntly just looked really slow. Natural decline? Maybe, but he wasn't that old yet when this started to show. He should have had a couple of more years before that really started to show.
Eventually it's revealed he had a hip injury. He has surgery to try to fix the issue. It didn't help his hockey. He played at the start of last season. He looked fine, I guess. Fine isn't much of a compliment though. At the end of the day he played 8 games to start the season and had just one assist. It just wasn't Nicklas Backstrom.
He stepped away from the team on November 1st and hasn't played since.
Again, just rotten luck. You have a franchise guy like Backstrom who is fighting injuries in his early thirties and is basically forced into retirement in his mid thirties. Then on the same team you have a guy like Alex Ovechkin who never seems to be hurt. He's been relatively healthy his entire career. Some guys are able to avoid injuries for whatever reason. Sometimes they bite guys and they bite them hard.
Maybe we are able to see Backstrom one more time. Maybe this hip injury hasn't taken him out completely. But I think we can say one thing is for sure. At the very least this injury took away from some of his prime years. The back half of his prime years anyways. Awful!
Conclusion
Like we said earlier, everyone is going to have annoying things happen to them in their career. But Nicklas Backstrom had at least three really, really annoying and bad luck things happen to him in his career.
Is Backstrom a hall of famer? Well that is a different argument for a different time. I have seen and heard arguments about other players who had better numbers than Backstrom did and people say those guys shouldn't get in.
Without some of these stupid luck things happening Backstrom could have been a no doubt, hall of fame, slam dunk. Maybe without some of his bad luck he has more playoff runs. More playoff points, Stanley Cup appearances, more rings. Maybe, just maybe he can help team Sweden in 2014 and he has an Olympic gold medal next to his name. At the very least he plays more games and continues to climb all time points and assists lists.
He had 762 career assists. 45th all time. Would one hundred more assists be unlikely? I don't think so. That would have put him in the 865 range. That would have been top 25 all time. Why couldn't he have gone even higher than that?
He was already top six all time in points by a Swedish born player. He was just 37 points back of Henrik Sedin for 4th all time. Nicklas Lidstrom had 878 career assists, most by a Swedish player. Could Backstrom have been on the top of that list without his injury costing him years?
As great of a career that Nicklas Backstrom had the more I thought about it the more I kind of bummed myself out. You hate seeing life get in the way of greatness. I think Backstrom got slapped by lady luck a couple of times. As great of a career that he had, it still could have even been better.
A good reminder. Enjoy these players and moments while you can. You never know what can happen.