Caps Briefing: Backstrom Sits Out Kiddie Contest
Nicklas Backstrom at a preseason practice.
The All Star game features the league's top 36 skaters and six goalies, including the top four centers from each conference. Backstrom is currently 16th in the NHL in points and seventh in assists. His 48 points are fifth among Eastern Conference centers and his 36 assists are fourth among the same group. Each of these statistics counts Pittsburgh's Evgenei Malkin as a center, even though he as been playing left wing more and more this year. Even with the pileup at center, some members of this year's All Star team, including Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby, are listed simply as "forward," a generic position that gave executives extra leeway to include more of the league's top centers.
Why isn't Backstrom a shoe-in for the All Star team? The NHL requires that each team be represented by at least one player. That could account for the inclusion of Eastern Conference centers Vincent Lecavalier and Eric Staal. Both players have had great seasons in the past, but Backstrom is currently outperforming both, and his Capitals are near the top of the league.
Lecavalier's Tampa Bay Lightning are again one of the bottom five teams in the league this year. Their poor performance already led the club's new ownership to fire infamously coiffed coach Barry Melrose. Lecavalier himself has been off the radar since Caps defenseman Shaone Morrisonn separated his shoulder with a legal check last spring.
Staal's Carolina Hurricanes, at least, hold second place in the Southeast Division. At 23-20-5, they've won only seven fewer games than the Capitals, who are fourth in the entire league at 30-15-3. The Hurricanes have a tenuous hold on the eighth and final playoff position in the Eastern Conference. One standings point behind them and outside of the playoffs are the Pittsburgh Penguins. This underachieving franchise will be represented by Crosby and Malkin, who have each performed well individually, but will have to step things up if they want to get into the postseason.
Of the top seven teams in the East, only one center is listed on the All Star roster. If having an All Star center is so closely linked with having a bad team, then we suppose Washington is lucky to have neither. Caps coach Bruce Boudreau has already publicly criticized the All Star team selection process for leaving league MVP Alexander Ovechkin out of the starting lineup in favor of aging Montreal forward Alexei Kovalev. His comments criticized the easily manipulated fan balloting system, but perhaps he could have said more.
The NHL's one-player-per-team All Star lineup policy is a relic from the days before the salary cap. It used to be financially impossible for clubs in some cities to field talent comparable to the players in established hockey hotbeds like Detroit and New York, so players who chose to lead noncompetitive teams deserved praise for helping to keep the game alive in their cities. Now that the salary cap helps all the teams to bid more equally for the services of the league's top talent, there is no more reason to honor sub-par players on noncompetitive teams. Crosby and Malkin deserve spots in the show because they are outscoring nearly everybody in the league. Staal and Lecavalier are there for sentimental, nostalgic reasons. They're diluting the talent pool and taking up spaces that could be used to highlight the NHL's top performers.
Backstrom is right to sit out a consolation prize of an event. If the NHL doesn't want to celebrate one of its most successful centers as he deserves, in the All Star game, they shouldn't expect him to go through the motions against promising youngsters. Backstrom's statement that he wants to let someone else compete in the Young Stars game while he rests up for the second half of the season is appropriate and understated. Backstrom doesn't need to prove that he can be a part of the NHL's future anymore. He is its present.