31-year-old Mikael Backlund has four years left on his contract at $5.35 million. Back in November of 2019, that deal was starting to look like it might be a huge and imminent problem for the Calgary Flames.
Backlund scored just three goals and 10 points in his first 29 games of the 2019–20 season, causing the Flames to look at unorthodox and unprecedented lineup changes in an attempt to get him going. They moved him to the wing for a little while and even tried him as yet another Gaudreau-Monahan-xxxxxxxx right-winger. (He was no Buddy Robinson).
Eventually, things started to click for Backlund right back where he started, next to Matthew Tkachuk.