This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mikael Backlund
Calgary Flames Center
The captain at 36, 32 points, and a 50.9 per cent chance share in the club's hardest minutes.
| 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 | CGY | 82 | 15 | 24 | 39 | -4 | 24 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 209 | 7.2 | 19:14 |
| 2024-25 | CGY | 76 | 15 | 17 | 32 | +4 | 32 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 175 | 8.6 | 18:44 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 1066 | 215 | 348 | 563 | +66 | 487 | 36 | 18 | 38 | 2576 | 8.3 | 17:18 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
15 goals and 17 assists in 76 games for 32 points, plus-4, on 18:44 a night.
50.9 per cent at five-on-five, the 62nd percentile, taking the defensive-zone starts against the other club’s best line. His on-ice goals were 29-31 against an expected 41-39, so the line was outscored while creating slightly more than it allowed.
The Finesse Game
Limited and always was. 175 shots and 15 goals at 8.6 per cent is close to his career rate, and 17 assists is thin.
What has never declined is the reading of a play. He takes away the middle of the ice, supports the puck properly, and is among the better defensive-zone faceoff centres in the league, which is why a 36-year-old with ordinary hands still plays 19 minutes a night.
The Physical Game
6 feet and 206, and honest. He wins pucks on the wall, blocks shots, and finishes checks without ever being a punishing player.
32 penalty minutes over 76 games. The durability has been remarkable — sixteen seasons, and he has cleared 70 games in eleven of them.
The Intangibles
Sixteen seasons in one organisation, the captaincy, and a career of being the least glamorous indispensable player in the league.
At 36 the legs are the whole projection and a defensive centre who arrives late is a liability rather than an asset. Nothing in last season suggests it has started; the club has no succession plan for when it does.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,038 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.9%
- 62nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.2%
- 76th 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: 29 for, 31 against. Expected: 40.6 and 39.1.
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 315 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 78 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
2024-25 · 1038 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, 2024-25
- The club
- CGY took 48.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.9% — 2.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 1,038 minutes at five-on-five — 66th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blake Coleman | 52.2% | 46.7% | 50.5% |
| Matt Coronato | 50.6% | 51.3% | 50.3% |
| Rasmus Andersson | 50.5% | 51.4% | 47.7% |
52.2% together, 46.7% for him apart and 50.5% for Coleman apart. He was worse away from Coleman, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Coleman did.
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
258 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 15 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 26% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 31% from beyond forty.