Head coach Barry Trotz is leaning towards separating Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin to start the season, Isabelle Khurshudyan of The Washington Post reports.

EDGE Analysis

The offseason departures of Marcus Johansson and Justin Williams may be to blame as Trotz has to resort to more drastic measures for the sake of depth on his scoring lines. Given the emergence of Evgeny Kuznestov over the last two seasons, it's not surprising that the 29-year-old pivot will be asked to anchor his own unit alongside the talented T.J. Oshie and (most likely) Andre Burakovsky. Given that Backstrom will still be working the top power-play unit, it's not likely his production will suffer too much, but this may be worth considering as your draft unfolds.