David Backes switched sweaters Friday, moving from the St. Louis Blues to the Boston Bruins on the first day of NHL free agency. Now the focus turns to how he fits into the Bruins’ lineup.
Backes, who signed a five-year, $60 million contract with Boston, is a center by trade but also can play right wing.
The former is a position of great strength for the Bruins, who have Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci centering their top two lines and Ryan Spooner anchoring their third. The same cannot be said about the latter, as right wing was a black hole for the B’s for much of last season.
The Bruins’ need for reinforcements on the right side got even greater when they lost versatile winger Loui Eriksson to the Vancouver Canucks on Friday, and Backes certainly is someone who can help in that regard. According to him, though, the Bruins intend to play him at his natural position.
“I think it’s like anywhere,” Backes said in an interview with TSN shortly after signing. “The roles and opponent and how things are going, that can change. But the idea is that I’d be a center, and you’d have Krejci, Bergeron and myself as the top three centers. However you want to number them, that’s up to you.
“But (we’re) all three guys that can kind of share that load and be responsible 200-foot players, and when you share that, I think we’ll have a little bit more juice in the tank when it’s either the end of the game or late in the season when you really need that extra jump.”
If the plan is, in fact, to use Backes as their second- or third-line center, the Bruins could look to package Spooner or Krejci in a trade for a proven defenseman, which remains the team’s greatest offseason need.
Late-season tailspins doomed the Bruins in each of the last two seasons, but Backes said he was drawn to the franchise’s winning mentality.
“They came out and showed tons of interest,” the 32-year-old told TSN. “I talked with (general manager) Don Sweeney and with (head coach) Claude Julien and talked to a couple of the players, and just the ideology, the clear path that they think they have to winning a Stanley Cup, and their all-in, ‘let’s win now’ sort of mentality.
“It was great conversations we had over this interview process, and then (Friday) when the numbers start rolling out, it’s one of those things where it was a fit on all accords, and now I need to change some colors that we decorate with.”
Backes spent the first 10 years of his NHL career with the Blues, serving as team captain for five of them. Though Backes’ numbers dipped a bit last season (21 goals, 24 assists in 79 games), St. Louis made its deepest playoff push since 2001, falling to the San Jose Sharks in six games in the Western Conference finals.
“There’s been a lot of sleepless nights or short-sleep nights and waking up in the morning and just hoping that something would get done in St. Louis,” Backes told TSN. “We tried and tried and tried, but in the end, I think it was a business decision for the team. That’s their right, and I’ve earned the right to be an unrestricted free agent.
“I found another place that had the spot for me. I think it’s a great hockey fit, and we were able to work on the numbers in short order, as you can tell, and we’re going to be moving area codes.”
Thumbnail photo via Jasen Vinlove/USA TODAY Sports Images
