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Nicklas Backstrom Shooting, Scoring At Near Career Pace

Since they have both come into the league, Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom have been one of the best 1-2 duos in the entire league. A perfect match, Backstrom has dazzled with his brilliant playmaking ability, setting up Ovechkin, who has become one of the most prolific goal scorers in NHL history.

Playing with Ovechkin exclusively, Backstrom was not called on to shoot the puck as much, hence limiting the amount of goals that he has scored throughout his career.

With the emergence of Evgeny Kuznetsov the last couple of years, the Capitals have experimented having both Russians play with each other. As of late, that has become the case again, freeing Backstrom to play with Marcus Johansson and T.J. Oshie. According to Left Wing Lock, the trio has combined to play together the highest percentage of the time at even strength.

Now able to ‘man his own line’, it has freed Backstrom up to expand his game a little bit more, even giving him an opportunity to shoot a bit more. Lost in the fact he is just shy of a milestone when it comes to assists (three from 500) is Backstrom actually attacking the net himself more often than he has in the past.

The former fourth overall pick back in 2006 has found the back of the net more often this season, already netting nine goals (six at even strength) in 32 games this year.

Shooting More

Since coming into the league, Ovechkin has been one of the highest volume shooters, taking more than 1,300 shots than the next guy (Eric Staal) on the list. Being that, it’s obvious that when Backstrom was out there with him, he wasn’t going to be taking a lot of shots. At even strength, Backstrom averaged 6.36 shots-per-60 minutes played throughout his career.

This chart shows a breakdown of Backstrom’s iSF/60 throughout his career at even strength (numbers courtesy of Corsica.Hockey), the red line through the middle is his career average. If the bar goes higher than the line for a given year, he shot at a higher rate, below would mean he didn’t shoot as much.

Backstrom’s overall career high season was the 2009-2010 season, where he found the back of the net 33 times (21 at even strength). Obviously to score that many times, he would need to shoot more often, which he did by shooting at the highest rate of his career.

This year he has been shooting at the highest rate since that 2009 career season, as he is currently firing 7.47 iSH/60 this year, a full shot over his career average, so it should be no surprise that he is on pace to have his second-highest goal output.

Shooting Percentage

He can fire all the shots on net he wants, if he doesn’t find the back of the net, it is all for not. While he isn’t shooting at the same success rate as he has the last two years, it is still a step up from his career mark of 10.02%.

For Backstrom, he has mainly shot at well above his career average, his 2008-2009 season being the main dissimilarity (only five of his 22 goals were at 5v5 even strength).

While he isn’t converting as often as other years, the fact that he is shooting a lot more often will allow him to pass some of his totals from years before. Backstrom scored 19 even strength goals the last two years combined (38 overall) while converting at a higher rate both seasons. But this year he is shooting more than two shots per 60 minutes this year, which should allow him to finish with a higher total than either season.

Goals On Their Own

Thanks to more shooting, and converting above his career average, Backstrom is currently scoring at the third highest pace of his career, tallying just a bit short of a goal-per-60 minutes (0.85).

Since the 2012 lockout shortened season where he registered just 0.46 iGF/60 (second lowest of his career, 0.26 back in 2008-2009), Backstrom has increased his goal output, leading up to this season, where he is nearly scoring at his third highest rate of his career.

In the two years he scored 33 (21 even strength) and 14 (nine even strength), respectively. The 2011 season he only played in 42, missing time to an injury, resulting in the low goal total.

Backstrom is certainly on pace to register just his fourth 20 goal season in his ten-year NHL career.

Coming At A Cost?

Steering slightly off the goal scoring topic, the increased in shots and goal scoring has come at a small cost. Backstrom is currently producing at one of the lowest rates of his career when it comes to primary assists (A1/60).

His current rate of 0.70 A1/60 is on pace to be the fourth lowest mark of his career and nearly .40 points lower than his best season back in 2009-2010. Backstrom has a career A1/60 mark of 0.81.

Make no doubt about it, though, Backstrom still remains one of the best playmakers in the league, and will be celebrated as so once he hits assist number 500. Only 138 players have ever reached that milestone and Backstrom is still only 29 years old.

Since the opportunity has presented itself, however, Backstrom has taken advantage of it and has called his own number more than he has in recent history.

It also leaves you with the question of what could have happened if Backstrom had made the same decision to shoot more throughout his career, instead of defaulting to his teammates more often than not.

Anthony Murphy

Anthony is a contributing writer to Capitals Outsider. He has also written for The Hockey Writers, Last Word on Sports, Fansided, and Rant Sports in the past.

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