Team Sweden has named a replacement forward for the 4 Nations Face-Off — and it’s not Mikael Backlund.
That is not necessarily a negative for the Calgary Flames.
In this case, no news could even be counted as good news.
It has always been meaningful for Backlund to represent his country, but the flip side is that the 35-year-old centre — the oldest dude on the Flames’ roster and clearly gutting it out through some sort of injury — will benefit from a break before the chase for a wild-card spot really intensifies.
“You want them to get that experience, without a doubt, and I know he would have loved to have been in that situation,” said Flames bench boss Ryan Huska prior to Tuesday’s tilt with the Toronto Maple Leafs. “And still, who knows? There is still some time before it gets going. But if it doesn’t end up working out for him, then absolutely, when you’re an older player and you play as hard and you play the minutes that he plays, I think having some time away is a great thing.”
While you may have missed it, between the teeth-chattering cold in Calgary and the buzz that always accompanies the annual visit from the Maple Leafs, the Swedes confirmed Tuesday morning that they have added Rickard Rakell to their roster for the upcoming international best-on-best. He replaces the injured William Karlsson.
Rakell is certainly a worthy fill-in — he is, after all, the leading goal-scorer for the Pittsburgh Penguins — but Backlund would have been strongly considered, too.
Maybe they even inquired.
Asked last week if he would be willing to scrap any vacation plans he might have if he received a call from Team Sweden’s brass, the Flames’ captain hinted it would depend on his health.
“We’ll see what happens,” Backlund replied. “I’m not focused on that. I’m just focusing on playing my game and winning games here. The rest, it will take care of itself.
“If the question comes and we get there and I’m 100 per cent, then I would of course go.”
He won’t come out and say it, and NHLers rarely do, but he’s not 100 per cent.
Backlund has skipped the majority of recent practices for ‘maintenance’ reasons. If you were watching Saturday’s clash against the Detroit Red Wings, you may have noticed his pained expression after he was cross-checked by Simon Edvinsson at the net-front.
And yet, he continues to lead all Flames forwards in nightly ice-time and will be among their most important pieces during a playoff push that few predicted they would be part of.
His shutdown work is crucial for a team that must win low-scoring, tight-checking games. His five-on-five analytics remain positive across the board, especially impressive when you consider that he starts so many shifts in the defensive zone.
“He’s a guy who lives by example,” praised fellow Flames forward Ryan Lomberg. “He doesn’t demand anything of his teammates that he won’t do or isn’t willing to do himself.
“He does all the hard things. He hauls a lot of minutes for us. He plays against other teams’ top lines. He takes a ton of faceoffs. He kills. He’s on the power-play. He definitely is the leader of this ship, and we’re lucky to have him.”
And if he gets a two-week lay-off between games — the Flames are idle from Feb. 9-22 — because he isn’t skating at the 4 Nations Face-Off, well, that could be lucky too.
“It’s the best time of the year — into the second half and having a chance to make playoffs, it’s always exciting and fun,” Backlund told Postmedia last week. “I just try to bring it every day and push the boys by playing the right way and grinding every day and come to work every day and just being positive and encouraging and showing that I believe, that I believe in the group and I believe we can do it.”
ICE CHIPS: Swedish rearguard Rasmus Andersson is currently slated to be Calgary’s lone representative at the 4 Nations Face-Off, which runs Feb. 12-20 in Montreal and Boston, although MacKenzie Weegar might want to keep his phone close since Canada is down a defenceman … A pair of injured Flames are back on their blades, with Huska revealing that both blue-liner Kevin Bahl and centre Connor Zary have skated the past two days. Bahl has missed five games so far due to an upper-body injury and will be the first of these two to return, while Zary has been sidelined since Jan. 7 after an ugly knee-on-knee collision.