Spotlight will soon catch up with Backstrom
Capitals centre continues to lead team to playoffs
NEW YORK • Karl Alzner couldn’t quite remember if the play happened last year or the year before. He couldn’t even tell you what team they were playing. Of course, it doesn’t really matter, the Washington Capitals defenceman said. With Nicklas Backstrom, plays like this happen all the time.
In this instance, the Capitals had been up a goal and the other team had their goalie pulled with less than a minute remaining in the third period. Someone on Washington banked the puck off the boards and it started sliding down the ice towards the empty net.
“So Nick was racing their guy for that puck,” Alzner said, “and instead of tapping it in — because he could have — he tied up the other guy’s stick and let it go in. That could have been an easy empty-netter for him, but he didn’t even get a point on the play. He just wanted to make sure his teammate got the goal. “It’s things like that.” Yes, it’s things like that — not taking advantage of an easy empty-net goal, never getting mentioned in the same conversation as Henrik Sedin or Claude Giroux or even getting invited to a single All-Star Game — that make Backstrom the National Hockey League’s most underrated No. 1 centre.
Even in Washington, he tends to go unnoticed.
Teammates say the quiet Swede prefers it that way. Backstrom led the league with 60 assists and helped set up 33 of Alex Ovechkin’s leagueleading 53 goals. But while Ovechkin is the gap-toothed superhero who launches himself at the glass after scoring goals and gets nominated for the Hart Trophy, Backstrom is the sidekick who goes about his business without much fanfare or recognition.
He is Teller to Ovechkin’s Penn, the guy who looks like he’s doing nothing but meanwhile is pulling all the strings behind the scenes.
“I think when you have a superstar like Ovie on your team, other guys don’t get the spotlight as much,” Alzner said. “He just goes out there and helps a guy score 50 goals every year. That’s pretty impressive.”
As Ovechkin was entertaining a massive crowd of cameramen and reporters prior to Thursday’s Game 1 against the New York Rangers, Backstrom sat in his stall and undressed in front of two or three reporters. When asked about his individual success this season and in the playoffs, where he had a team-leading three goals and six points in seven games, the 27-year-old shifted the attention back to the team.
“We talked all season that we have to be on the same page,” he said. “I think we’ve been doing a good job of that.”
What about his own game? Backstrom shrugged and said, “I didn’t change too much.”
“I think he’s just too quiet of a guy,” Capitals winger Joel Ward said. “I think if he was telling everyone that he was the best, people would listen. But he just goes about his business. He’s just fun to watch.”
Consider this: Backstrom, who was selected fourth overall in the 2006 draft, has scored more points (572) than Jonathan Toews, Claude Giroux, Phil Kessel or anyone else taken that year. In his eight seasons in the league, only Henrik Sedin and Joe Thornton have recorded more assists (427). And yet the 27-year-old, who finished sixth in league scoring with 78 points, has never been in the conversation for an individual award.
“I don’t know how he hasn’t gone to the All-Star Game,” said Ward, laughing. “That’s outrageous. We’ll have to get a petition going.”
Before Ward joined the Capitals four years ago, he had a passing knowledge of just how good Backstrom was. “I’d see the highlights on TV,” he said. But it was not until Ward saw him work on a daily basis, both with and without the puck, that he started to gain an appreciation for the little things Backstrom does.
For one, he’s much bigger than you might think. Listed at 6-foot-1 and 210 pounds, most of Backstrom’s weight is contained in his tree-trunk legs and Jagr-like backside. Try to push him off the puck and his skates seem as if they are rooted in the ice. A favourite move of his is the reverse bodycheck, where he puts his head down and invites a defenceman to hit him, before springing forward at the last second.
“He’s almost waiting for you to hit him,” Capitals defenceman Tim Gleason said. “That’s when he’s at his most dangerous.”
“You know when you’re going up against him, he’s going to give it back,” Rangers defenceman Keith Yandle said. “You have to be strong on your skates to defend him.”
For a player who has spent his entire career riding shotgun with Ovechkin, Backstrom might get typecast as a one-way player. He finished the 2013-14 season with a minus-20 rating, but this season, on an average possession team — Washington ranked 13th in the league with a shots attempted (or Corsi) percentage of 51.3 — Backstrom led all Capitals who had played 60 or more games at 53.9 per cent and ranked 34th among the league’s centres.
“I’ve been beating the drum for him as one of the best twoway players in the National Hockey League all year,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. “He’s a superstar that really gets no attention.”
There are, of course, two ways to get more attention: speak up or let your actions do the talking. For a Capitals team that has failed to advance past the first round in each of the last four years, a long playoff run could go a long way in promoting Washington’s secret weapon.
“I think [Anze] Kopitar was in the same boat as him for a while and then they make it to the finals and people start to notice him,” Alzner said. “I think that would be a way for people to open their eyes. That’s what we’re going for here. Playoff success leads to individual success.”