This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mikael Backlund
Calgary Flames Center
Two hundred and fourteen shots and twelve goals — 5.6 per cent, the 7th percentile — with 2:03 shorthanded at the 93rd.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-09 | CGY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 10:44 |
| 2009-10 | CGY | 23 | 1 | 9 | 10 | +5 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 47 | 2.1 | 12:36 |
| 2010-11 | CGY | 73 | 10 | 15 | 25 | +4 | 18 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 144 | 6.9 | 12:05 |
| 2011-12 | CGY | 41 | 4 | 7 | 11 | -13 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 85 | 4.7 | 15:23 |
| 2012-13 | CGY | 32 | 8 | 8 | 16 | -6 | 29 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 88 | 9.1 | 15:07 |
| 2013-14 | CGY | 76 | 18 | 21 | 39 | +4 | 32 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 178 | 10.1 | 18:32 |
| 2014-15 | CGY | 52 | 10 | 17 | 27 | +4 | 14 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 103 | 9.7 | 17:45 |
| 2015-16 | CGY | 82 | 21 | 26 | 47 | +10 | 28 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 155 | 13.6 | 16:26 |
| 2016-17 | CGY | 81 | 22 | 31 | 53 | +9 | 36 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 197 | 11.2 | 17:36 |
| 2017-18 | CGY | 82 | 14 | 31 | 45 | -21 | 78 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 214 | 6.5 | 19:01 |
| 2018-19 | CGY | 77 | 21 | 26 | 47 | +34 | 52 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 205 | 10.2 | 17:54 |
| 2019-20 | CGY | 70 | 16 | 29 | 45 | +3 | 26 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 157 | 10.2 | 17:57 |
| 2020-21 | CGY | 54 | 9 | 23 | 32 | -7 | 30 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 144 | 6.3 | 17:36 |
| 2021-22 | CGY | 82 | 12 | 27 | 39 | +16 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 214 | 5.6 | 17:07 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 826 | 166 | 270 | 436 | +42 | 395 | 28 | 15 | 31 | 1932 | 8.6 | 16:53 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
12 goals and 27 assists in 82 games — 39 points at 17:07 a night, plus-16, with 30 penalty minutes.
56.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,112 minutes, the 87th percentile among forwards, and 57.5 per cent of the shot attempts, the 95th. His ice went 48-33 against an expectation of 51.46-40.24 — three fewer goals for than the chances promised and seven fewer against.
Two hundred and fourteen shots produced twelve goals. That is 5.6 per cent, the 7th percentile among forwards, and it is the reason a 39-point season looks worse than it was.
The Finesse Game
9.15 shots per 60 is the 80th percentile among forwards and 39 per cent of them came from the slot, the 12th — he shoots from a median of 29 feet, the 84th percentile for distance. Volume from range, at 5.6 per cent.
97.7 mph is the 95th percentile among forwards. The shot is genuinely hard and it is being taken from the wrong place.
2.35 takeaways per 60 is the 90th percentile. He wins pucks and gives them to somebody who can finish.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 206. 2:03 a night shorthanded is the 93rd percentile among forwards, on the 2nd-best penalty kill in the league, and he has done that job for a decade.
2.65 hits per 60 is the 32nd percentile and 1.15 blocks is the 22nd. He is a positional defensive centre and not a physical one, which is a distinction the counting stats never make.
43.1 per cent of his even-strength time was in the offensive zone, the 85th percentile. For a defensive centre that is remarkable, and it is a consequence of the third line spending its shifts in the other end.
The Intangibles
Twenty-fourth overall in 2007, and 826 games with 436 points, all for this club, at 33.
With Blake Coleman he took 59.9 per cent and with Andrew Mangiapane 59.6, across more than a thousand attempts each; apart from either he was around 51. The third line was the best possession unit on a club that led the league in possession, and it is the one part of this roster the summer did not touch.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“2:03 a night shorthanded is the 93rd percentile among forwards”
“He is a positional defensive centre and not a physical one, which is a distinction the counting stats never make.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,112 minutes
- Expected goals
- 56.1%
- 90th pct
- Shot attempts
- 57.5%
- 96th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 48 for, 33 against. Expected: 51.5 and 40.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 16 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.2 mph
- 51st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.74 a game
- Distance
- 2.87 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 97.7 mph
- 97th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1112 minutes at five-on-five
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- CGY took 55.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.1% — 0.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 1,112 minutes at five-on-five — 78th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blake Coleman | 59.9% | 51.2% | 51.1% |
| Andrew Mangiapane | 59.6% | 51.9% | 59.1% |
| Noah Hanifin | 61.0% | 53.3% | 55.3% |
59.9% together, 51.2% for him apart and 51.1% for Coleman apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
282 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 27% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 25% from beyond forty.