Boston Bruins: Shaking loose of the David Backes deal a big success

For the Boston Bruins, the David Backes deal has been a burden for quite a while now. Thankfully, we’ve finally shook loose of it. Almost.

To only be on the hook for $1.5 million of the $6 million deal that the Boston Bruins had David Backes locked into for another season is a huge win. To add a talent like Ondrej Kase, even if the additional components make it slightly costly, marks n equally smart decision.

David Backes, as much as he was a great veteran figure, was always seeking to be dealt at this point in his career. No player wants to retire, especially one that feels they can still contribute, albeit not in the point-producing way they once did.

The Anaheim Ducks will no doubt utilise him as a leadership figure and mentor on a team that is slowly getting younger. He should provide another strong voice alongside the likes of Ryan Getzlaf.

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In Boston though, put quite simply he no longer had a role to play. Last season’s Stanley Cup Final would’ve been amazing if it had gone the opposite way and Backes was able to win the Cup over the team that drafted him. A storybook ending in so many ways.

Unfortunately, he suffered another concussion this season and continued to look completely out-of-place in the increasingly faster modern-day NHL. Both factors obviously out of his control, but given the high cost of his contract, they made him a thorn in the Boston Bruins’ side.

The market was set at the start of this season for ditching this sort of contract when the Toronto Maple Leafs shifted Patrick Marleau to the Carolina Hurricanes at the cost of their first-round pick.

We’ve known all year that’d be the price Don Sweeney would ultimately have to pay. To be loose of that contract or at least 75% of it is incredibly smart business.

When you break the trade down, you could argue that the cost to ditch David Backes is the draft-pick while Ondrej Kase only actually cost Axel Andersson, in a round about way.

Hindsight is obviously twenty-twenty and even though fans stated at the time that it was an over-pay for Backes, there was still a chance that he could establish himself as a useful performer for the Bruins.

After all, in his final season with the St. Louis Blues, Backes was still a 21-goal, 45-point scorer. Even his first year in Boston, he still managed 17 goals and 38 points, making him pricey but not supremely over-paid.

It didn’t all pan out perfectly, but fact is we can now move on and focus forward to contract renewals for the likes of Jake Debrusk and Torey Krug, without most of the expensive cost of Backes hanging over us.