Calgary Flames<\/a> captain received the call confirming that he wasn\u2019t part of Sweden\u2019s plans for the Milano-Cortina tournament shortly before Christmas, so there had been time for the tough news to settle in.<\/p>\nStill, though, the disappointment was palpable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I played really well this fall and playing against the best players in the world every night, I showed that I can do a good job against them,\u201d Backlund said. \u201cSweden has a lot of good players, it\u2019s hard to make the team and I never expected it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been a dream to go to the Olympics and that\u2019s why I was hoping for it, but I never expected it because I know how good a team Sweden has and there are so many good players, but it\u2019s disappointing and frustrating. I felt like I played really well this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
To a man, you won\u2019t find anyone around the Saddledome who disagrees with that assessment.<\/p>\n
While there were few players on the Flames roster who were thrilled with the way they were playing in October when the team stumbled out of the gates and was sitting in last-place in the NHL, Backlund has played a pivotal role in the team turning its season around.<\/p>\n
You often hear about the 36-year-old\u2019s leadership in the locker room and Backlund being one of the NHL\u2019s top defensive centres, but he has been contributing offensively, too.<\/p>\n
He has 10 goals and 15 assists through 40 games and led the team in scoring in December, with six goals and five assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I\u2019m disappointed for him,\u201d Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. \u201cI think they made a mistake. I believe in Mikael. He\u2019s a guy we use in all situations against top players and is having one of his best years as a pro.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe brings so much more to the table that he just does on the ice. I feel for him, it would have been a wonderful opportunity for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
To what degree Backlund being left off the Swedish team qualifies as a \u201csnub\u201d can be debated. The country will be one of the favourites going into the Olympic tournament and will field a deep roster that will be disappointed to fall short of the podium.<\/p>\n
If you compare Backlund\u2019s season to what either Elias Lindholm or Elias Pettersson have done, though, you can make a strong case for the Flames captain.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
Lindholm has the same number of points (25) as Backlund, while Petterson has two fewer. Look at plus\/minus, though, and Backlund\u2019s +16 is far better than Lindholm\u2019s minus-3 or Petterson\u2019s minus-11.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Backlund was passed over. The selection committee did ask him to be part of their injured reserve list and he agreed, but no athlete wants to be sitting around hoping another player gets injured so they can get a shot.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s disappointing, plain and simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really good friends, first and foremost,\u201d said Flames blueliner Rasmus Andersson, who was named to Sweden\u2019s team<\/a> on Friday. \u201cAs a friend, I\u2019m really sad for him. I know how much it would mean for him to go. You look at the hockey side and this is the best he\u2019s played in a long time, if not the best he\u2019s ever played.<\/p>\n\u201cI would have loved to see him on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt would have been a dream.\u201d Mikael Backlund was open about his disappointment on Friday morning, just a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[895,26,5294,4512,2318,896,5,1740,231,4,3327,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-387528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary-flames","8":"tag-calgary","9":"tag-calgary-flames","10":"tag-calgaryflames","11":"tag-elias-lindholm","12":"tag-elias-pettersson","13":"tag-flames","14":"tag-hockey","15":"tag-mikael-backlund","16":"tag-nashville-predators","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-rasmus-andersson","19":"tag-team"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115828375150526533","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}