David Backes didn’t get much sleep on Tuesday night.
For as much as the veteran forward wanted to shut off his TV for good — he continued to find himself glued to the screen. As the minutes ticked down and the St. Louis Blues inched closer and closer to their first Stanley Cup Final berth in close to five decades, Backes simply couldn’t help himself.
“I turned the TV off maybe six or seven times last night,” Backes said Wednesday at Warrior Ice Arena, "saying I just need to go to bed, I don’t want to think about it too much. But then the TV comes back on in some magical way and you end up watching a little more and by the end of it, it was tough to fall asleep. My wife begging me to just turn the lights off and just go to sleep.
“Lot of thoughts running through your head.”
Now in his third year with the Bruins, Backes hasn’t exactly had an easy tenure during his time in Boston, but the power forward doesn’t have many complaints now. Now a regular in a top-six role with David Krejci and Jake DeBrusk this postseason, Backes stands just four wins away from clinching a prize that has eluded him throughout a 13-year NHL career — a Stanley Cup.
Still, Backes did admit that it was a bit bittersweet to see the Blues punch their ticket to the Cup Final — and set St. Louis and Boston up for a championship rematch 49 years in the making.
After all, St. Louis was the only home that Backes knew for his first 10 seasons in the league, the last five of which he served as captain of the Blues.
When he departed St. Louis in the summer of 2016 to ink a five-year contract with the Bruins, Backes offered a heartfelt farewell to the only club he’d ever been a part of — lamenting on how his “countless dreams of being the first Blue to raise a Cup and play my whole career with one organization have sadly come to an abrupt and unexpected end.”
A great mixture of emotions and thankful for an amazing decade of my life! Farewell @StLouisBlues #BleedBlue pic.twitter.com/AyYSSOqj06
— David Backes (@dbackes42) July 1, 2016