Completely appreciate the legwork in gathering the stats. However, I am loathe to praise Backlund without comparison to players on a better team - sure he's one of the better Flames (when healthy) but how does he compare to players on teams that are, you know, good?
Yeah, I can understand that and its a tough thing to do in many cases.
For example
A Corsi number is figured by calculating the difference between the number of shots DIRECTED toward the offensive goal versus the number of shots DIRECTED toward the defensive goal while in 5-on-5 skating situations and excluding empty net shots. The key word in that definition is “DIRECTED” and it includes all shots that are on net, miss the net or are blocked. I would guess that the rationale behind this stat is that the larger a team’s discrepancy between shots directed for and against, the more that team is controlling the play.
So in relation to his teammates and the players he played against consistently, Backlund controlled the pace of the game in a positive direction (towards the opposition's net). However, it obviously a statistic that can be manipulated by many different variables and is tough to compare league wide, team to team.
If you want to compare him to a player like Sean Couturier for example, who is widely lauded for his defensive abilities (albeit on a below average team this year), Backlund blows him out of the water in most aspects. Mikael is far better in the faceoff circle, throws more hits, gets more takeaways, blocks more shots, plays against similar competition, and drives the play forward at a better pace. In saying that Backlund is not relied upon defensively by Hartley as much as Couturier is by Laviolette. Couturier averages top ten PK minutes league wide, and starts in significantly less offensive zone starts. So you could make the argument that because of those two variables that Couturier is given less of an opportunity than Backlund to advance the play forward.
If we are comparing Backlund league wide with these statistics, here is what they would look like.
Mikael Backlund ranked tied for 46th in the league amongst forwards with a QOC of 0.57 (Couturier 42nd with 0.59)
Mikael Backlund ranked 60th in the league amongst forwards in relative corsi with 9.7 (Sean Couturier 154th with 2.1)
Mikael Backlund ranked 147th in the league amongst forwards in on ice corsi with 2.14 (Sean Couturier 257th with -4.24)
Mikael Backlund ranked 293rd in the league in offensive zone starts with 45.4% (Sean Couturier 384th with 32.1%)
Mikael Backlund ranked 93rd in the league in offensive zone start finishes with 52.7%, only five of those 92 players ahead of him had less offensive zone starts than he did. (Sean Couturier 351st with 44.7%)
Mikael Backlund ranked 189th amongst forwards in ES TOI/G with 13:19.
Mikael Backlund ranked 239th amongst forwards in PP TOI/G with 1:23.
Mikael Backlund's 2.75 shots per game would have put him tied for 37th in the league among forwards had he played all 48 games.
Mikael Backlund's 0.875 takeaways per game would have put him tied for 8th in the league among forwards had he played all 48 games.