Columbus Blue Jackets hire former NHLer Niklas Bäckström as goaltending coach

The Columbus Blue Jackets have confirmed that former NHL netminder Niklas Bäckström will be the team’s newest goaltending coach.

Bäckström will replace Manny Legace, who served as the team’s goaltending coach for the past five years. Legace, 50, has a 12-year NHL career, recording a 187-99-41 record and helped Detroit win the 2002 Stanley Cup.

Bäckström has been with the Blue Jackets as a European goaltending consultant since retiring from hockey in 2019.

As a player, Bäckström had a 10-year NHL career with Minnesota and Calgary, quickly making a name for himself as one of the best goalies in the league early on. The undrafted Finnish-born netminder was unstoppable with Karpat in Liiga action in 2005-06, earning him a contract with the Wild the following year. There, he had a 23-8-6 record with five shutouts and a .929 save percentage in a year that saw him take home the Jennings Trophy. He was a Vezina Trophy finalist in 2009, the same year he made his only NHL all-star game appearance.

After a four-game stint with Calgary in 2015-16, Bäckström left the NHL to play with HIFK in Finland for the next three years.

Among other accomplishments, he won two Olympic medals (silver in 2006, bronze in 2010), three World Championship medals (silver in 2016, bronze in 2006 and 2008), and had the NHL’s most wins in 2012-13.

The 2022-23 season was a tough one in net for Columbus, who came dead last in the Eastern Conference. The club used six goalies last year, with Joonas Korpisalo beign the only one with more than one game played to break the .900 save percentage barrier. The team’s starter, Elvis Merzlikins, struggled to stay healthy and posted a 7-18-2 record with a .876 save percentage. Other goalies that made starts include Jet Greaves, DAniil Tarasov, Michael Hutchinson and Jon Gillies.