Today is a very special day. It’s the one year anniversary since Matthew Tkachuk, Mikael Backlund, and Michael Frolik were assembled on a line together.

Backlund and Frolik were already an established pairing, having played most of the previous season together and thriving. Sam Bennett was their most common linemate in 2015-16: a rookie who was partnered with two of the most responsible players on the team.

It paid off.

The 2016-17 season, however, had a new rookie. Tkachuk had only scored one goal by this time last year, and had already been a healthy scratch for two games. There was no guarantee he’d spend the rest of the season in Calgary at all, or if he’d be headed back to London to play in the OHL.

But St. Louis was his hometown. And there’s only so long one can really scratch a rookie. Hence, on Oct. 25, 2016, Tkachuk drew back into the lineup with two new linemates. He registered an assist.

And thus, the Flames’ most consistent line was born. Consistent both in that they were the only trio that could be regularly counted on to play together, and consistent in that they were reliably good. Tkachuk finished with a 48-point season, Backlund with 53, and Frolik 44 – all three scoring regularly whilst handling the duties of a shutdown line.

They played over 740 5v5 minutes together, according to Corsica. Let’s scale that back a bit and look at lines from the previous season that played at least 600 minutes together – all seven of them; such consistency really isn’t common – and see how they compare. All numbers are at 5v5.

The 3M line was far and away superior to the other lines in terms of corsi for, while being the third best line in goals for, and getting the worst zone starts by a fair margin. Only Koivu’s line can really compare with Backlund’s in terms of zone starts, but the latter still largely outplayed them: about three points shy in goals for, but over seven points ahead in corsi, which utilized a greater sample size.

That the 3M line stuck together for so long is remarkable in and of itself. That it outperformed the other longevity lines is something else entirely.

So far this young season, Backlund and friends have played approximately 94.9 minutes together: the eighth most frequent line used thus far. Their CF is 57.89%, which is fourth in the NHL among lines with at least 50 minutes played. (Only one line above them – Wennberg’s, now featuring Atkinson and Artemi Panarin – has played more together.)

Their GF is 75.00%, in a four-way tie for 11th. And their ZSR is 36.47 – the second most difficult zone starts in the NHL thus far, second only to Vancouver’s Markus Granlund, Brandon Sutter, and Derek Dorsett, who have a ZSR of 30.77 and a CF of 43.12%.

In other words: arguably the NHL’s best line last season has picked up exactly where they’ve left off, exactly one year later. Happy birthday.