BACKS IN BUISNESS!

 

Recently I had the chance to talk to Uffe Bodin, the Editor in Chief for hockeysverige.se. Uffe was updating the twitter-verse with the happenings around the various Swedish hockey leagues. I took the opportunity to ask how Mikael Backlund was faring playing with VIK Västerås HK in the HockeyAllsvenskan league. He replied…

 

After a short discussion back and forth, Uffe agreed to do an interview for Flames Nation specifically about Mikael and his start to this season. After all, who doesn’t want another article about Mikis, right?

Uffe Bodin: He’s obviously playing in a league that is far, far away from the NHL when it comes to overall skill, but his game has certainly exceeded my expectations. He had a rough season in the NHL last year and I was uncertain of where he stood after all the injuries. These past few weeks, however, he has probably been the most dominant player in the league. And that’s a pretty good thing since guys like Anze Kopitar, Matt Read, Carl Hagelin, Gabriel Landeskog and Patrik Berglund are also playing here.

UB: A lot of players that come to Sweden from the NHL have needed some time to adjust. With Mikael, it seemed like he was able to do everything right away. He had three points in his first game and has just been playing better and better after that. Since Västerås is the only club he ever played for in Sweden, I’d say familiarity is probably the key. He knows all the players and the coaches after working out with them during the summer. That probably helps a lot.

UB: He’s playing in pretty much every situation together, not as a centerman but as a leftwinger.

UB: Powerplay guy, for sure.

UB: Patrik Berglund of the St. Louis Blues is a big, scoring center with a great shot. Mikael Frycklund is the other winger on that line. He’s just 19 years old and is probably living is dream right now, playing on a line with two NHL’ers.

UB: I’d say that he has elevated Berglund’s game. Berglund came over much earlier than Backlund and has played five games more. He had trouble scoring initially, but ever since Backlund caught fire, the pucks seem to go in for him as well. Backlund has 19 points after ten games and is fifth in the league in scoring. Berglund is 13th with 16 points.

UB: Just by looking at the way he drives to the net gives you an indication that he’s playing with a lot of confidence right now. Still, he’s playing in Hockeyallsvenskan, the Swedish equivalent to the AHL, so you can’t draw too many conclusions about how the game he is playing right now would transpire to the NHL.

UB: As I said earlier, it’s the AHL of Sweden (without the farm team system). You have the SEL (Swedish Elite League) which is the number one league in Sweden and then you have Hockeyallsvenskan. Teams in Hockeyallsvenskan strive for qualification to the SEL, while the teams that are in the bottom of the standings in the SEL strive to avoid relegation to Hockeyallsvenskan.

UB: To some degree, I’ve got to think so. The game is very different from the NHL and especially the defencemen that he is playing against are softer. Still, he’s producing almost two points per game, which is more than anyone else in that league is producing, including Kopitar and the other NHL players.

UB: Great. He has been scoring some really beautiful goals lately, some of them by using that great shot he has.

UB: Oh boy, tha’t’s a tough one. I don’t think he would become a high scoring NHL player right away. Depending on which role the Flames were to give him, I’d say he could probably score 15-20 goals, 30-35 points this year. But it all depends on which role and how much ice time he would be given.

UB: Mikael Backlund has always been at his best when he is used as an offensive player in a top six role. I don’t think he’ll ever be a good shutdown center or a great penalty killer. He will always be a better player with the puck than without.

UB: If he could find more balance in his game, and by that I mean even out the range between his ups and downs, I could see him become a 20-25 goal scorer in the league. But I’d like to see him against tougher opponents than the ones he’s been facing this season before I say anything more. This week, he’s playing with the Swedish National Team in Karjala Tournament in Finland. He’ll face a lot of good NHL players there. That will probably give us a clue of how good he really is at the moment.

 … I want to take this moment to thank Uffe for agreeing to do this. It was a pleasure chatting back and forth and I appreciate him taking the time to join us here on Flames Nation. I look forward to being able to do this again sometime.

You can follow Uffe Bodin here on Twitter.