{"id":419101,"date":"2026-01-19T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T10:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419101\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T10:30:10","slug":"could-leo-carlssons-injury-send-mikael-backlund-to-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419101\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Leo Carlsson\u2019s injury send Mikael Backlund to the Olympics?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gang, injuries to National Hockey League players are never good news. On Friday, the Anaheim Ducks announced that centre Leo Carlsson had to undergo surgery for a lower body injury and he\u2019s slated to be out for 3-5 weeks.<\/p>\n

Carlsson\u2019s a really promising young player and he\u2019s become an important player for the Ducks. He\u2019s so important and prolific that he was named to Sweden\u2019s national men\u2019s team for the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.<\/p>\n

However, with Carlsson needing surgery, the timeline for his recovery creeps into the window for the Olympic men\u2019s hockey tournament. While it hasn\u2019t been announced or officially confirmed, it seems probable that Carlsson may miss the Olympics due to his injury.<\/p>\n

And that begs the question: if Carlsson isn\u2019t good to go to Italy for the Olympics, who would be replacing him on Team Sweden?<\/p>\n

Carlsson\u2019s a 21-year-old left shot centre who\u2019s now into his third full NHL season with the Ducks. He\u2019s progressed really quickly offensively and has spent much of this season on a line with Chris Kreider and Troy Terry, playing against some of the opposition\u2019s toughest players but getting a steady diet of offensive zone starts, too. In 44 games, Carlsson has 18 goals and 44 points.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Backlund is a 36-year-old left shot centre who\u2019s now into his 16th full NHL season with the Flames. Backlund has been one of the NHL\u2019s most reliable 200-foot centres since around 2016-17 and regularly appearing on Selke Trophy ballots<\/a>. He\u2019s having a strong offensive season, with 12 goals and 31 points through 48 games. He\u2019s played in a checking role for the past decade, usually with a steady diet of defensive zone starts against the opposition\u2019s top players, plus he\u2019s one of the better penalty-killers in the NHL.<\/p>\n

If Carlsson can\u2019t go, the decision will probably depend on what role the Swedish brass is looking to fill. The three Swedish forwards with the most points that weren\u2019t named to Team Sweden were Minnesota winger Marcus Johansson (34 points), Backlund (31 points) and San Jose winger William Eklund (30 points). If they want a two-way, checking centre, Backlund\u2019s probably their guy. If they\u2019re looking for wingers or players that are more offensively oriented, perhaps they go another way.<\/p>\n

Backlund has previously represented Sweden at 10 major international events, most recently captaining them to a World Championship back in 2018. He turns 37 in March, so it\u2019s reasonable to call the 2026 event probably his last chance to represent Sweden at an Olympics.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see if he ends up making it to Italy after all.<\/p>\n

Sponsored by bet365:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gang, injuries to National Hockey League players are never good news. On Friday, the Anaheim Ducks announced that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-419101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}