Confirmed Signing with Link: [BOS] David Backes (5 years, $6.000M AAV)

[8lb6ozbabyjesus]

Ahh Backes...
Guys a good hockey player... he is just... ummm... mental.
Opponents - Send someone out to check him HARD on the first shift of the game, and he will literally spend the entire rest of the game chasing guys all over looking for a payback hit.

Kings would have either Dwight King or Brown do it early in every playoff game and BAM... That was it.. Backes would be out of position the rest of the game.. Like clockwork.

When he is ON... He is a great player, size, hands, net presence... just...Soooo easy to rattle...

 

[xVolchenkov]

Letang, Mattaa, Daley, Domoulin, Lovejoy and Schultz.

Do those names compare the former?

Do you think Backes, Bergeron and Krejci = Crosby, Malkin and Kessel?

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Adds good depth down the middle. ***** to play against. Good signing

 

[Rocurs]

25-29 teams won't win **** in the next 5 years, what's the point of anything?

Technically 26-30 teams won't win **** in the next 5 years, you forgot about Vegas.

 

[Al Lagoon]

Keeping Loui would have been much better.

 

[nmbr_24]

Orr and Bourque?

They missed the playoffs by a point two straight years, the Panthers as the top seed in the Atlantic had 10 points, 5 more wins. If they got a couple of D who can win one game each for them they would have had the same amount of points as Tampa. It is not very far fetched to think it possible to improve the team by 4 points if they were able to add two top 4 D. If they made the playoffs it is pretty easy to see them beating most of the teams that made the playoffs this year, no sure thing of course but they could be right there with everyone else.

It is amazing that somehow Tampa is so great but Boston is terrible in some people's minds, they were separated by 4 points for crying out loud, Boston also had more wins than Detroit who made the playoffs. They also have been pretty good against teams like Pittsburgh for the past 4 years or there abouts.

They add a couple of top 4 D and I think they are right there. Chara, Backes, and Liles are 39, 32, and 35 respectively, everyone else is 30 or under.

 

[N o o d l e s]

Do you think Backes, Bergeron and Krejci = Crosby, Malkin and Kessel?

Interesting that you ask. Perhaps we should check out the head to head matchup between the teams the last three or four years?

 

[member 157595]

Interesting that you ask. Perhaps we should check out the head to head matchup between the teams the last three or four years?

The Penguins just won the Stanley Cup. I doubt they, or their fans, give a damn on how they have matched up against any single other team recently.

There's still a lot to like on the Bruins roster. But I don't think this deal helps them today. It makes them better now but to me it sounds like a really bad allocation of resources when the D is so paper-thin.

 

[Hi ImHFNYR]

Loving the Bruins hate Could care less what any other fan base think We are a better team today than last year ,we sucked and still had 90 plus point.

Hopefully Backes hurts a few people this year

Are you confusing legitimate criticism of a bad contract for hate of Boston?

If you could care less then why did you come to the main boards?

 

[Drew311]

Out of all the big contacts signed today, this will be the first to go south.

 

[pierre gagnon*]

Do you think Backes, Bergeron and Krejci = Crosby, Malkin and Kessel?

Not sure history is going help you there a few yrs ago Krejci and Bergeron were way too much for crosby and malkin. Pretty much Crosby has been pulled away from matches with Bergeron and bergy outscores him head to head so far

 

[pierre gagnon*]

Sure you selected a broad enough brush to paint that comment with?

same brush hab fans will tell you PK is a great locker room guy and radulov is a saint and that weber contract whammo, better tell Pastrnak, Spooner, Colin Miller to buy some hair dye they must be about 36 now

 

[BadBruins]

Keeping Loui would have been much better.

Could be right. I think the draw to Backes is the fact that he's a right shot C/W.

I didn't want to go any longer than 3-4 years for Eriksson. In an ideal world, 3 is the max you go for Backes.

Up the middle they can line up:

Bergeron
Krejci
Backes

Three very good faceoff men and two-way players. Probably means Krejci and Bergeron can lighten their current load on the PK, which means more offensive zone situations. 3-4 years from now that will look like a pretty worn down group. More reason to go for it now.

Can always shift to the wing if things get stale as well.

Eriksson is a great player, but he never showed an ounce of chemistry with either Bergeron or Krejci 5 on 5. Not a player that could carry his own line either. He kind of goes with the flow. Still think he played his best ES hockey with Soderberg. The notion that he was a perfect fit was a little false. Had a great year though.

 

[pierre gagnon*]

Out of all the big contacts signed today, this will be the first to go south.

Ladd and Radulov

 

[Caper Bruins fan]

Ahh Backes...
Guys a good hockey player... he is just... ummm... mental.
Opponents - Send someone out to check him HARD on the first shift of the game, and he will literally spend the entire rest of the game chasing guys all over looking for a payback hit.

Kings would have either Dwight King or Brown do it early in every playoff game and BAM... That was it.. Backes would be out of position the rest of the game.. Like clockwork.

When he is ON... He is a great player, size, hands, net presence... just...Soooo easy to rattle...

That is the kind of player the Bruins need . Someone " mental " .

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

Not sure history is going help you there a few yrs ago Krejci and Bergeron were way too much for crosby and malkin. Pretty much Crosby has been pulled away from matches with Bergeron and bergy outscores him head to head so far

bostons centers have been better than pittsburgs head to head... but alot of that was because chara/thomas/rask are miles better than letang/fleury.

im sure even bostons biggest homer fans will give credit that crosby/malkin are the most impactful 1-2 punch in the nhl

that said this entire argument is stupid. nhl cant be dominated by 2-3 players no matter how good they are.

crosby or anyone else can be held to under a ppg by a dominant checking performance. if those same checkers exploit pittsbughs weak defense the net gain for crosby might be less than .25 goals per game.

meanwhile a very strong 4th line might outscore a weak 4th line by .25gpg too.

hockey is a team game where depth matters.

pittsbugh got depth performance this year and won. crosby and malkin certainly did not have career years. they were better in other seasons when boston was winning.

great players... all 6 guys in this conversation... but its a team game

 

[Engebretson]

Ahh Backes...
Guys a good hockey player... he is just... ummm... mental.
Opponents - Send someone out to check him HARD on the first shift of the game, and he will literally spend the entire rest of the game chasing guys all over looking for a payback hit.

Kings would have either Dwight King or Brown do it early in every playoff game and BAM... That was it.. Backes would be out of position the rest of the game.. Like clockwork.

When he is ON... He is a great player, size, hands, net presence... just...Soooo easy to rattle...

Completely agreed. The guy has a temper and I've seen it get the best of him so many times. If he could learn to just keep his head cool more often, he'd be so much more dangerous.

 

[N o o d l e s]

The Penguins just won the Stanley Cup. I doubt they, or their fans, give a damn on how they have matched up against any single other team recently.

There's still a lot to like on the Bruins roster. But I don't think this deal helps them today. It makes them better now but to me it sounds like a really bad allocation of resources when the D is so paper-thin.

Great, they got hot at the right time, rode the wave and won the Cup. I'd wager good money the B's aren't going to in the next few years.

I actually think it helps them today in a few ways, though. The Bruins, or I should say Clode specifically, likes to play a certain way. Backes is essentially a blueprint of it. The East is fairly wide open, so I am retaining the slightest bit of hope. Nobody would have penned the Pens as cup champs in February, which is kinda what my point was anyway.

It depends on where Backes is slotted in. If we can move Spooner for a D-man with term I like it more. Or if Backes ends up cemented on Bergy's wing and we are able to sign someone like, say, Demers, I like it as well.

Great the Pens don't give a damn. But when you make a point that the Bruins are unable or not talented enough to come out of the East because of their defense, when the Pens won with that group and the Bruins have won something like 10 straight meetings against them, it doesn't make much sense.

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

Ladd and Radulov

the frans nielsson contract is already bad before hes played a single game. there is no 'defense first' forward in nhl history that was still playing a significant role after age 35.

i cant find any examples of softish euro checking forwards that remained effective until age 35

a guy like loui eriksson is 2 years younger than nielsson and is a multi time 30 goal scorer and even his deal sucks. a guy like jere lehtonen was a much better player... esa tikkanen... jurri kurri... none of these guys were able to play beyond age 35 and they all had much more offensive talent.

guys like bob gainey and steve kasper and don marcotte and terry oreilly and claude lemiex and other great defensive players of the past were all done by age 35.

if a guy has world class offensive skill like federov or datsyuk or francais they can play past 35 if they stay healthy but nielson is 32 with just 2 twenty goal seasons ever.

this is an above average checker with a popgun offense who is almost 6 mill per year. anyone calling backes deal the biggest gamble has no idea what they are talking about

 

[pierre gagnon*]

the frans nielsson contract is already bad before hes played a single game. there is no 'defense first' forward in nhl history that was still playing a significant role after age 35.

i cant find any examples of softish euro checking forwards that remained effective until age 35

a guy like loui eriksson is 2 years younger than nielsson and is a multi time 30 goal scorer and even his deal sucks. a guy like jere lehtonen was a much better player... esa tikkanen... jurri kurri... none of these guys were able to play beyond age 35 and they all had much more offensive talent.

guys like bob gainey and steve kasper and don marcotte and terry oreilly and claude lemiex and other great defensive players of the past were all done by age 35.

if a guy has world class offensive skill like federov or datsyuk or francais they can play past 35 if they stay healthy but nielson is 32 with just 2 twenty goal seasons ever.

this is an above average checker with a popgun offense who is almost 6 mill per year. anyone calling backes deal the biggest gamble has no idea what they are talking about

I was going add Lucic and eriksson to that list but yeah beat me with loiu

 

[bluetuned]

As a Blues fan I'm sorry to see him go. Always loved him on the team, hot head moments and all. I'm not sorry about that contract. He'll probably still be a pretty serviceable player for the next 3 years, but I don't think he's still going strong in years 4-5. His best days are behind him as it is. He's a long way from the guy who could put up 20+ even strength goals in a season.

 

[Borderbluesfan]

Completely agreed. The guy has a temper and I've seen it get the best of him so many times. If he could learn to just keep his head cool more often, he'd be so much more dangerous.

This has been a valid argument in the past. Backes has always played with passion and has been known to be baited into taking bad penalties. Never really the bad boy that NHL fans that only saw him once or twice seemed to think he was. Finishes his checks, goes in hard, occasionally late by a step or two, lol. This last season or two, he has seemed to have learned to skate away and not take as many bad penalties. He will be a tough-nosed, hard player to play against. He is starting to slow down. I think Blues would have kept him on a 3 year contract, but Boston offered him too much for too long. Boston fans will love him this year and the next, but then they will start to wonder why they are paying him so much after that. If you liked Lucic, you will love Backes. Personally, I always thought Lucic was much more of a goon than Backes, lol.

 

[The Nightman]

This contract may come back to bite those Bruins. Ouch lol

 

[mikeyp24]

I think I'm probably going to be one of the only people that like this deal. Backes has been one of my favorite non cbj players along with Ryan Kesler for a very very long time. While he might be a million overpaid he's just getting what the market was already set at. He's to go if of a player and cares to much to fall off a cliff. Especially since he plays bruins style hockey which is close to the line. He will be right there on the line while a few of his teamates will sprint past it haha. I'm not a fan of the B's but I am a fan of Krug and Backes so good like this year.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Ahh Backes...
Guys a good hockey player... he is just... ummm... mental.
Opponents - Send someone out to check him HARD on the first shift of the game, and he will literally spend the entire rest of the game chasing guys all over looking for a payback hit.

Kings would have either Dwight King or Brown do it early in every playoff game and BAM... That was it.. Backes would be out of position the rest of the game.. Like clockwork.

When he is ON... He is a great player, size, hands, net presence... just...Soooo easy to rattle...

Sadly, this is soooo true.