4. Nicklas Backstrom
Nicklas Backstrom of the Washington Capitals have been remarkably consistent. Despite his production, he was very underrated until the past few seasons, when he emerged as the Caps best player. Backstrom’s calling card is his power play production, as he paced the NHL with 35 power play points in 2016-17. He also finished with 86 overall points, third in the league behind only Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid. Only the latter had more assists than Backstrom’s 63.
However, he’s also an outstanding defensive center. The emergence of Kuznetsov has made his job a bit easier, but Backstrom still consistently goes against his opponent’s toughest lines and pairings. In fact, teams usually try to keep their best players away from his line, which tells you how much they respect him.
Backstrom is also one of the NHL’s top performers in the face-off circle. He’s an overall amazing center and is averaging almost a point per game for his career. In today’s era, that’s very impressive.
Whether it’s fair or not, Backstrom hasn’t gotten as much attention as he deserves because of his team’s playoff failures. That’s the society we live in today. But it doesn’t change that if the Capitals wanted to trade Backstrom, there’d be approximately 30 teams interested in him.