Someone with the Calgary Flames must have read one of our stories on offer sheets. Why? Because they re-signed forward Mikael Backlund, a pending restricted free agent, to a three-year contract worth $10.725 million.
Not like he was a candidate for an offer sheet, but hey … who knows?
Nice job by Calgary, also taking away two of the 26-year-old Backlund’s unrestricted free agent years.
Matchsticks and Gasoline sees this as a win for the Flames by keeping Backlund under a decent-sized contract. Last year he had 27 points in 52 games. The previous year he was a touch under 20 goals with 18 tallies in 76 contests. His previous contract was for two years at $3 million.
His extension in 2013-14 was more of a "prove it" deal rather than a bridge contract, and Backlund proved it. After being demoted to fourth line duty, Backlund worked his way up to the top six and has found a permanent place there. Brad Treliving acknowledged Backlund as a part of the core in his final press conference, and confirmed that the team was working towards this deal.
The deal is very well worked, keeping Backlund around for a while longer while keeping it cap friendly (not that the team needed any help being under the cap).*
And since this is the Flames, we have to talk about advanced stats … just because. His CF% 5-on-5 was 46.44 percent according to Natural Stat Trick. His shot attempts relative percentage per the NHL’s enhanced stats site was plus-2.2 percent.
As the Calgary Sun notes, the Flames have locked up a lot of their younger players for the next few seasons:
With Backlund, sophomore 31-goal scorer Sean Monahan, Sam Bennett (the 2014 first-round pick who skated in all the playoffs but will be a rookie next season) and veteran Matt Stajan, the Flames have a shored up a collection of centres for the next several years.
Yeah, they may need to load up on talented centers with that McDavid guy likely coming to Edmonton.*
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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