Team Goals Take Priority Over Individual for Backes at LinesMaker

Team Goals Take Priority Over Individual for Backes

HAZELWOOD, Mo. — When it’s time to leave work, David Backes is the kind of per­son that leaves it all at the office — or rink, in his case.

At least most of the time.

Backes, the Blues’ cen­ter and first-year cap­tain, prefers to devote his time and atten­tion to wife Kelly and their pets. Both are advo­cates for var­i­ous char­i­ties, includ­ing David’s Dogs and Kelly’s Kats. These orga­ni­za­tions work to get needy stray pets placed in lov­ing homes, as well as raise money for var­i­ous shel­ters and animal-awareness cam­paigns. It’s part of who Backes and his wife are away from the rink.

But at home?

“At home we don’t talk a whole lot of hockey,” Backes said Mon­day. “When I’m here for four hours a day, it’s pretty intense decision-making and going through the paces and get­ting things done. When I get home, it’s nice to have a lit­tle retreat. … It [hockey] takes me away from her. But she played in high school and there are times I do need to vent to her. She’s pretty good at keep­ing me level-headed and talk­ing me off the ledge. It’s a lot of self-reflecting, and the coach­ing staff and some of the other lead­ers I think would be the guys that I really hash it out with.”

Backes was named as one of three final­ists Mon­day [along with Boston’s Patrice Berg­eron and Detroit’s Pavel Dat­syuk] for the Frank J. Selke Tro­phy, which is given to the NHL for­ward who demon­strates the most skill in the defen­sive com­po­nent of the game. He’s the heart-and-soul of a Blues team that has flown under the radar all sea­son long.

He typ­i­fies what under­rated means in the utmost fashion.

“It’s quite an honor and a hum­bling regard to be seen in that light by the writ­ers and the guys vot­ing on it,” Backes said. “That being said, it’s not sin­gu­lar. I feel a lot of debt to guys like T.J. Oshie, who I play almost every shift with. Some of the other guys that play the left side like [Alexan­der] Steen, David Per­ron, the defense­men, the goalies … they’ve all chipped in to cre­ate that atmos­phere for good team suc­cess, and then comes in indi­vid­ual hon­ors like that.”

Blues coach Ken Hitch­cock said of the award, “That’s one of the most valu­able awards in the League. That went from a check­ing award to now a two-way award. You look at the play­ers that are there, they’re 200-foot players.

“Every player that gets nom­i­nated now is a guy that’s able to con­tribute offen­sively, but is a con­sci­en­tious two-way per­former. I’m really proud of him because he per­son­i­fies the way we want to play the game, the way our team wants to play the game, the way we want to be seen in the NHL. To me, he car­ries the man­tle. I think that award is almost as valu­able as the Most Valu­able Player award. I really believe that. I believe any­body that wins that award, with the way the game of hockey’s played right now, that’s a sig­nif­i­cant award to win because it’s now being looked at in a dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ment. … It was a check­ing award [in the past], it was a shut­down award and now it’s changed. I’m really proud of David on that.”

Backes’ style of play doesn’t fit the bio of most NHL cap­tains. He’s not among the lead­ing scor­ers nor does he fill up the stat leader boards — even though he paced the Blues with 24 goals and tied Oshie for the top spot with 54 points. But his will, deter­mi­na­tion and leading-by-example style at both ends of the ice is what exem­pli­fies what his team­mates see.

“Not really a rah-rah guy,” Oshie said. “He says stuff when it needs to be said. He gives guys the nor­mal talk that [Bar­ret Jack­man] does or that [Jamie Lan­gen­brun­ner] gives. He doesn’t go over­board. He’s mostly a lead-by-example guy and he does that very well.

“… I think the one big step that he’s taken is how unselfish he is. You want to look to your leader and know that that guy’s going to go to work for you and a guy’s going to do any­thing for you when it comes down to it. He does that. He’s taken on a role right now where they’re telling him that, ‘Hey, you’re not going to get 10 scor­ing chances a night. We need you to defend the top line,’ because he’s our best checker. He’s our best down-low guy in the defen­sive zone. He’s taken pride in that, but it’s a hard thing because every­one wants to score goals. He’s taken pride in shut­ting down their top line from scor­ing. You can’t do any­thing but gain respect from your team when you do some­thing like that.”

It’s the only way Backes knows how to do things.

“I’ve always been a believer that you can yell and talk and rah-rah all you want, but unless you’re out there being the first guy in the bat­tle and lead­ing by exam­ple, those words fall on deaf ears,” Backes said. “That’s kind of my thing. If we have a tough period, for me to come into the locker room and scream and yell and try to get guys going that way, to me, it’s wasted energy. I need to be the first one on the ice for the first shift to set the exam­ple and lead that way. It’s a lot more effec­tive way than the verbiage.”

Backes doesn’t mind that he’s not among the League’s top scor­ers. If he can step onto the ice and shut those play­ers down and help his team win games, that’s what sat­is­fies him most on those dri­ves home.

“We’re an evo­lu­tion, at least where St. Louis Blues hockey is going … we don’t have guys that are going to put up 100 points a year, score 60 goals a year,” Backes said. “We need com­plete play­ers that are hard to play against at both ends, being respon­si­ble in the defen­sive end. Try­ing to cre­ate turnovers that turn into offense has been a focal point. It’s going to have to con­tinue to be a focal point.”

Hitch­cock said Backes could be one of those elite-number players.

“He could be a dif­fer­ent player. He could get more points, but we prob­a­bly wouldn’t get as many wins if he got more points. He’s bit the bul­let in some areas so that the team can win. We’re really happy for him.” - Blues coach Ken Hitchcock

“He could be a dif­fer­ent player,” Hitch­cock said. “He could get more points, but we prob­a­bly wouldn’t get as many wins if he got more points. He’s bit the bul­let in some areas so that the team can win. We’re really happy for him.”

Backes, 27, said he’s learned a lot this sea­son. Lean­ing on play­ers like Jack­man, Lan­gen­brun­ner, Andy McDon­ald, Steen, Jason Arnott and Scott Nichol, among oth­ers, has helped him fit into a role the Blues will need him to fill for years to come.

“It’s been quite a year,” Backes said. “There’s been a lot of learn­ing with the cap­tain role, but I think still grow­ing as a player alto­gether. There’s a lot of things that I’ve learned that … whether I’m going to state them all or not, I think there’s a lot of things that we’ve done very well this year, but there’s some things that will change in the future that I’ve learned we’ll be bet­ter off in the future from going through a few tri­als and tribulations.”

Being named cap­tain, Backes for­ever will be grouped with names like Brian Sut­ter, Bernie Fed­erko, Brett Hull, Al MacIn­nis, Chris Pronger and Wayne Gret­zky. But one thing those great names never were able to accom­plish that Backes hope­fully will get a chance to do with a younger and promis­ing team: win the Stan­ley Cup. It would be quite the honor.

“I think we’re a ways away from that,” Backes said of think­ing about his place in the organization’s his­tory. “If some­thing like that hap­pens … those things don’t sink in until I think you’re maybe not even play­ing. The accom­plish­ments, the acco­lades as they’re hap­pen­ing, you’ve got to take them in stride because you start think­ing too good about your­self and you start to dip a lit­tle bit.

“We’ll just keep push­ing for­ward and then when all is said and done and I’m sit­ting at home one day, we’ll think about how good one instance was or how impres­sive what we were able to do was.”

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