This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mikael Backlund
Calgary Flames Center
The 98th percentile in five-on-five share at thirty-four, in a fifteenth season with one club.
| 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 | CGY | 82 | 19 | 37 | 56 | +24 | 36 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 260 | 7.3 | 18:10 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 908 | 185 | 307 | 492 | +66 | 431 | 33 | 16 | 33 | 2192 | 8.4 | 17:00 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
19 goals and 37 assists in 82 games — 56 points, a career high at thirty-four, at 18:10 a night, plus-24, with 5 power-play goals and a shorthanded goal on 260 shots and 36 penalty minutes.
60.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,121 minutes. That is the 98th percentile in the league. His ice went 54-34 against an expectation of 58.24-38.03 — four goals of scoring missing and four fewer conceded than the chances predicted, so the result was honest at both ends.
He was plus-24 on a club that finished plus-8 overall.
The Finesse Game
260 attempts at a median of 25 feet, 36 per cent from inside 20, converting at only 7.31 per cent off a shot measured at 97.2 mph — the 89th percentile.
A 97 mph shot converting at 7.3 per cent from 25 feet is the most puzzling number on this roster. 185 goals in 908 games says the finishing has never matched the velocity, and the honest reading is that a hard shot with an ordinary release from a man who is not a natural scorer stays a hard shot.
307 career assists is where the value is.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 206, and 431 penalty minutes in 908 games is a hard, clean player.
The skating at thirty-four is remarkable: 23.1 mph at the 88th percentile with 1.9 bursts over twenty a game at the 83rd and 3.07 miles at the 83rd. He is faster than most of the forwards half his age in this book, and it is why he can still be the man the coach puts out against the other side’s best line.
The Intangibles
Twenty-fourth overall in 2007, fifteen seasons and 908 games in one uniform, and he has now been named captain.
He is 34. He has been the club’s best defensive forward for a decade without ever once being its most talked-about player, and the 98th-percentile share is the sort of number that should have won him a Selke by now. On a club that has lost Tkachuk and may lose Lindholm, he is the last of the identity.
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
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
60.5% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 53.1% for his club in the minutes he sat: +7.4, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“he can still be the man the coach puts out against the other side's best line”
“fifteen seasons and 908 games in one uniform, and he has now been named captain”
“He has been the club's best defensive forward for a decade without ever once being its most talked-about player”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,121 minutes
- Expected goals
- 60.5%
- 99th pct
- Shot attempts
- 60.9%
- 98th 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: 54 for, 34 against. Expected: 58.2 and 38.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 6 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 120 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 76 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.
Usual linemates
2022-23 · 1121 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, 2022-23
- The club
- CGY took 55.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 60.5% — 5.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,121 minutes at five-on-five — 75th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blake Coleman | 60.8% | 59.6% | 51.4% |
| Andrew Mangiapane | 62.5% | 58.1% | 51.7% |
| MacKenzie Weegar | 60.6% | 60.5% | 57.3% |
60.8% together, 59.6% for him apart and 51.4% for Coleman apart. Coleman was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Coleman than for him.
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
341 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 19 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 36% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 21% from beyond forty.