It's been an arduous season in Boston, but David Backes is set to finally get his shot at the Stanley Cup

RALEIGH, N.C. — You can’t fault David Backes for potentially having second thoughts.

After a 10-year career with the Blues — the final five of which he served as captain of the club — Backes inked a five-year, $30 million contract with the Bruins, with the veteran power forward expected to slot into a top-six role and revive Boston’s title window.

Things didn’t exactly go as planned.

Limited to 38 points over 74 games — his lowest scoring totals since his first full NHL campaign in 2007-08 — Backes and the Bruins found themselves back in the playoff picture, but bounced in the first round by the *shudders* Ottawa Senators.

Meanwhile, 1,200 miles west, the Blues advanced to Western Conference Final for the first time since 2001 — eventually coming up short against the Sharks in six games.

For Backes, at that point an 11-year NHL vet with over 800 games under his belt, another golden opportunity to lift Lord Stanley’s Cup slipped through his fingers. Things didn’t get much better going forward.

“Last year it was out in the second round against Tampa Bay,” Backes said. “You don’t know. You don’t know when you’re going to get these opportunities. … Some guys play their whole career and never get this opportunity.”

The 2017-18 campaign saw Backes deal with a bout of diverticulitis, colon surgery and a skate blade to the leg — so it should be a telling sign that the following season brought even more adversity for the power forward.

Limited to just seven goals and 20 total points over 70 games played, Backes primarily found himself slotted into a north-south, checking line in 2018-19 — with most of his 5v5 TOI split between Joakim Nordstrom and Noel Acciari (107 minutes together), as well as Chris Wagner and Sean Kuraly (100 minutes together).

But for the most part, Backes was a man without a line — forming part of 17 different forward combinations that logged at least 10 minutes of 5v5 TOI together during the regular season.

By January, Backes found himself tabbed as a healthy scratch for the first time in 12 years, with Bruce Cassidy occasionally rotating the forward out of the lineup in favor of speedier options at the wing, such as Karson Kuhlman.

The trend carried over into the postseason, in which Backes was forced to watch Game 1 of Boston’s matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs up at press level — before sitting out for an additional 13 days during both the Leafs and Blue Jackets series.

For a player that competes on the ice with an awful lot of pride in his game, it’s been a tough shake for Backes — who very well could have mailed it in given his lack of regular reps.

But rather than resign himself as a passenger on this B’s club, he took over as one of the conductors of this playoff run — and now stands just four wins away from the prize that has eluded him throughout his career.



As he fielded questions outside the Bruins locker room at PNC Arena on Thursday, minutes after a series-clinching victory over the Hurricanes, the vet’s eyes were still red from a couple of tears shed — the byproduct of a long-anticipated trip to the Stanley Cup Final finally becoming a reality.

“It’s awesome to see the passion and emotion that he had on his face after,” Brad Marchand said of Backes. “He’s such a huge part of our group. We build so much emotion off of the way that he plays. … When you see a guy that’s been around that long, and he has an opportunity now to play for a Cup … It’s a lot of emotion.”

He only averaged 10:09 of ice time during Boston’s four-game sweep over the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final, but the 35-year-old forward made the most of his shifts whenever he heard his number called on the bench — scoring a goal in Game 2 while delivering six hits as part of a heavy forecheck for the B’s.

Backes seems like an unorthodox fit on a Bruins second line with David Backes and Jake DeBrusk, but he’s answered the bell with whatever role Cassidy has asked of him.

Boston needed a physical counterpunch against the Maple Leafs after a loss in Game 1? Backes delivered seven bone-crunching hits in the span of just 12:12 of ice time in Game 2.

Need to put a body down low against Sergei Bobrovsky in Round 2? Backes took his lumps — but his puck recovery efforts along the end boards led to a goal from Sean Kuraly in Game 4.

Add in the lift that Backes provides both on the bench and in the locker room, and Cassidy will be the first to credit the role that Backes had in jumpstarting Boston on this current seven-game winning streak this postseason.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for David,” Cassidy said. “Wasn’t easy of a conversation, the first time we sat him out and we did it in the playoffs as well, trying to get what we thought was the best lineup, right or wrong. He was a true pro the whole time and now he’s kind of found what he can give us every night, whether it’s top 10-14 minutes, somewhere in there, sometimes a little less. … He’s at that stage of his career, he doesn’t know how many more chances he’s gonna get.

“We always have to balance — we had a young kid Kuhlman at the start (of the playoffs) … We thought it was a better fit because of the pace of the game. You lose some of those intangibles, so we balanced that the whole time. But right now, we seem to have found the formula and he’s done his part and more. I’m happy for him. He’s paid his dues in this league for a long time and he gets to go to his first Stanley Cup Final.”

Putting the team’s success over his individual game —and at times, well being — has been a constant theme for Backes in Boston.

He exemplified that way back when on Nov. 24, when he took a stick to the face from Jonathan Drouin during a road matchup against the Canadiens — drawing a penalty that eventually led to Boston’s go-ahead tally on the power play in a 3-2 win.

"I don’t mind bleeding,” Backes said postgame. “I think if that’s what it takes to win, I’ll take blood.”

Backes has sacrificed plenty during his third season in Boston, but all of the lows from the winter of 2018-19 can be offset with one hoist of the Stanley Cup in a couple of weeks — even if it might involve a matchup against his former team.

“It’ll be a lot of emotion, no question,” Backes said of a potential Bruins-Blues final. “It’s a place that’s near and dear to my heart. Still got a lot of friends on that team, wish them the best, but we’re concentrated on the Boston Bruins winning a Stanley Cup.”