Simply based on his contract, the odds favor David Backes returning to the Bruins next season, filling what he proudly calls his “Swiss Army Knife’’ role as a third-line winger or center and contributing on the second-unit power play.

Backes, now 34, believes he can still contribute upward of 40 points a season, and his boss, general manager Don Sweeney, feels 50 points is within reach for the strapping ex-Blues captain. Mind you, the latter is a level Backes last touched in 2014-15 when he was 30, faster, and logging steady, heavy minutes with the Bluenote on his chest.

There is also the chance that Backes’s final shift last Sunday in Tampa will be logged in the books as his last in the NHL.

Trucked head-on by Tampa Bay’s J.T. Miller, Backes was concussed upon contact, the force of Miller’s check nailing him on the button (i.e. chin) and depositing him like two tons of West Virginia coal to the ice, where he remained before finally making his leave on rubber legs (with aides at his side) to the dressing room.

It was, as always in such cases, painful to witness.

“Never great to have a brain injury,’’ a laconic Backes noted Wednesday, as he cleaned out his locker at the club’s practice facility in Brighton.

Due to his concussion history, Backes has become somewhat of an expert in self-diagnosis. The ominous, familiar basket of symptoms was dropped off at his cerebrum’s doorstep on contact.

“It’s not rocket science,’’ he said, asked if he knew the diagnosis at contact. “You don’t feel right. You’ve got symptoms . . . my brain rattled around pretty good.’’

Backes, who signed here in July 2016 for five years and $30 million, has become a frequent flyer in the NHL’s Club Concussion. He has had at least two while with the Bruins and acknowledged last week, somewhat reluctantly, he has suffered more than a handful over his career.

He is a smart man, aware, savvy. Backes knows what it is to be dinged. Science over the last 30 years has made it clear that all brain injuries merit serious attention, and the course of recovery, particularly for repeat victims, can be maddeningly unpredictable.

Here in the Hub of Hockey we saw the lingering cobwebs torture Marc Savard, ultimately forcing his retirement at age 34. We saw Patrice Bergeron, then only 22, fight nearly a full year to regain his senses and confidence after a devastating blast into the end boards by the Flyers’ Randy Jones in October 2007.

Backes typically has bounced back from his knocks with ease, thankful that his symptoms, once abated, have not returned once he resumes heavy workouts.

But he knows the science, and he knows his history and his age, and above all he knows the inherent risks of concussions. The NHL is reluctant, in fact outright dismissive, to draw a line between concussions and the chance players will develop CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), the degenerative neurological disease with symptoms similar to ALS and Alzheimer’s.

As he packed his bags Wednesday, thankful for a summer of rest and recovery, Backes was asked if he was worried about his history and the risk of CTE.

“Uh, yeah, all those conversations, thoughts, go through your brain,’’ he said. “You’ve got little kids, you’ve got a wife, you’ve got a lot of life to live after you play this game . . . but we will follow what’s known, the research . . . take time, rest, get symptom-free, umm . . . and get back out there and play the same hard game, you know, try to protect myself, try to avoid these.’’

It is a business fraught with risk and anxiety, and ice warriors like Backes (925 games,including playoffs, on his résumé) are forever reluctant to peer too long at potentially dire prospects. But he is now a step or two slower than his fastest teammates, with another ding on his neuro file, in a league of seek-and-destroy hits. One day he may be faced with the decision of whether to bravely continue his career, or err on the side of preserving his quality of life, his general well-being in retirement.

“At some point [concussions] are unavoidable, I think,’’ said Backes, “and if you play the game hard enough, long enough, you are going to get a few concussions. And hopefully the effects aren’t long-lasting or life-changing.’’

DEFINING DAY

Sanderson rings up a flashback

Bruins fans of a certain age can’t spot May 10 on the calendar without drifting back to that day in 1970, a hot and humid Mother’s Day, when Bobby Orr knocked home that goal to win the Cup.

“Thought about that myself today, sure did, I looked at it,’’ said Derek Sanderson, reached by phone this May 10, because old puck chroniclers do such things on May 10. “I was listening to the Felger and Mazz show, God help me . . . and somebody brought it up.’’

Sanderson, only 23 that afternoon, partnered in Orr’s winning goal, parked behind the goal line and receiving the pass Orr shoveled down the right-wing boards. Sanderson promptly returned the dish as Orr cut to the right post and Orr smacked the puck through Blues goalie Glenn Hall. It was Blues defenseman Noel Picard, also in sweater No. 4, who then launched Orr into an orbit that has made him the Hale-Bopp of hockey fame.

The good-natured Hall, by the way, has spent nearly a half-century signing copies of that iconic “Flying Bobby’’ picture, often kidding, “Is this the only goal this guy ever scored?’’ as he scribbles his name in Sharpie.

For the record, it was Orr’s 88th NHL goal, one of 296 in total.

Orr actually plunked down at the bottom of the left-wing circle, where Sanderson joined him in a joyous scrum. Wayne “Swoop’’ Carleton was the first on the scene, followed by the other three skaters, Eddie Westfall, Don Awrey, and Sanderson.

“That was something, because we weren’t a touchy, feely, huggy team,’’ recalled Sanderson, fully retired now and living in Needham. “I was so excited for Bobby. I just thought that was grand. In a Cinderalla season, that was dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s on a record year that he had.’’

More than 30 years later, in an interview for Canadian TV, Picard held up a copy of the “Flying Bobby’’ picture, which Orr signed. He recalled Orr telling him, “Pic, someday I am going to return you a favor.’’ Picard’s daughter later attended the New England Conservatory of Music, he added, and Orr found her an apartment.

Somewhat lost in the all the fond memories of the day, in Sanderson’s opinion, has been the work of Harry Sinden, who made that game his last as full-time Bruins coach.

For one thing, noted Sanderson, Sinden worked alone behind the bench, a sharp contrast to today’s NHL with its coaching congress back there, some of them with eyes trained almost exclusively on video gadgets and TV monitors.

Sinden, said Sanderson, brought “magic’’ to the job, including a stern disciplinary approach.

“You’ve got to love that,’’ said Sanderson, whose own ear, as a player, could be somewhat tone deaf to discipline. “I remember him going after Teddy Green one day, and Teddy was the toughest man in the valley. And Teddy just took it. Because Harry was right, and wasn’t afraid of disciplining anybody. That made everyone feel, ‘OK, I got [crap], but that’s OK, because so did everybody else.’ ’’

Sanderson’s two Cup rings with the Bruins, 1970 and ’72, now belong to sons Michael and Ryan.

“Bit of a struggle there,’’ said Sanderson. “They both wanted the second one more . . . you know, more diamonds.’’

For years, before he was married and began a family, Sanderson left the rings with his father in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Harold Sanderson wouldn’t wear them, said Derek, but proved a steadfast guardian of the heirlooms.

“When Nancy [née Gillis] and I were engaged, she’d never seen them,’’ he recalled. “So I brought her home to the Falls and said, ‘Dad, you got the rings? She’s never seen ’em.’ ’’

Absolutely, said the senior Sanderson, as he popped out of his recliner and made his way to the kitchen.

“I said, ‘Dad, where you going?’ ’’ said his famous son. “And he says, ‘To get a knife.’ I said, ‘A knife?’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ So he got a knife, comes back into the living room, and he cuts the hem of the curtains in the living room. And they both popped out.’’

ETC.

Hockey remains Carter’s business

No surprise that Anson Carter has become a growing presence on NBC’s TV coverage of the NHL. Always a bright and articulate interview subject in his three-plus seasons with the Bruins, the former Michigan State forward dabbled in a number of entrepreneurial enterprises since retiring after playing 15 games for Lugano (Switzerland) in 2007-08.

Carter moved to Atlanta upon his return from overseas, he said, in large part because he made connections with Swiss investors interested in buying the Thrashers, the NBA’s Hawks, and Philips Arena. He was working with some $400 million and was encouraged he could raise more.

Had investors been more willing to bet on Atlanta, the Thrashers could have stayed put and maybe the Winnipeg Jets wouldn’t be facing the Vegas Golden Knights in this season’s Western Conference finals.

But Carter found out that, like in most cases, big money speaks the loudest. Multibillionaire David Thomson bought the Thrashers (and revived the Jets) in 1999, only three years after the ex-WHA franchise bolted Manitoba for the Arizona desert.

“The ironic thing is, I had talked to David a few months before he bought the team,’’ recalled Carter. “And he said, ‘Look, I’d love to be part of your group, but if we are talking about four franchises (NHL teams then potentially up for sale), then I am conflicted.’ ’’

Carter said Thomson told him his No. 1 priority was to buy the first NHL team that would sell to him for the express purpose of being shipped to Winnipeg.

“He had his chips down,’’ said Carter. “I don’t really blame him. I mean, it was the $400 million that I had allocated from my group vs. his $28 billion as the richest guy in Canada. You can’t really compete against that.’’

Carter began working as a commentator for the NHL Network in 2011, a job he landed not by happenstance, but also not one he had actively pursued. Watching a game on TV one night, he was irked over something a commentator said about the play of Tomas Kaberle, prompting Carter to call Pat Brisson, who repped Carter during his playing days, to complain.

“The guy was just going off on Kaberle,’’ Carter recalled telling Brisson. “He said he was soft because he didn’t pound the guy in the corner. OK, well, he came up with the puck. He was smart and used his positioning. Not everyone thinks you have to go run the guy over every time. There are players who actually think the game.’’

Brisson listened, agreed, and politely told Carter to quit calling as he went to hang up. Unless Carter was interested in pursuing TV work, Brisson told him, go yell stuff at the TV in his family room.

“I thought he was joking, so I called him back, and I said, ‘OK, fine, fine, I’ll try it,’ ’’ said Carter. “And that’s kind of how it all started.’’

Now married (wife Erika) with two school-age children (Mikayla, Malia), the 43-year-old Carter zips north as TV duties dictate. His parents, born in Barbados, still live in Toronto, in the same Scarborough neighborhood where he grew up, one street over from ex-NHL goaltender Kevin Weekes, his parents also Barbadians. He and Weekes now both work for NHL Network.

Loose pucks

Carter was in Lugano the same season as another ex-Bruin, Landon “Of The Lost’’ Wilson, the former first-round pick (Colorado) who spent three seasons in Switzerland before taking one last kick at the NHL can with Dallas in 2008-09 . . . A last thought on the Penguins, eliminated in Round 2 by the Capitals: a perfect case of game fatigue. When he left the arena for the final time after the series loss, star Sidney Crosby had played in 297 games over three seasons, spanning 31 months. He missed but nine regular-season games in that stretch. Grueling. The Penguins had the talent and will to win a third straight title, but in today’s game, talent and will ultimately are forced to surrender to the grind of the calendar . . . Charlie McAvoy (USA) and David Krejci and David Pastrnak (both with Czechia) are the only Bruins at the IIHF World Championship in Denmark. Bruins GM Don Sweeney said other players on his varsity roster were extended invites, but they opted for rest and relaxation . . . Sweeney, who surrendered his first-round pick this June in the deal to acquire Rick Nash from the Rangers, said he will try to acquire another first-rounder between now and June 22, the night the top 31 picks are made in Dallas. “When you’re left empty-handed on Friday night, you wonder whether or not, ‘OK, is there a move to be made so you can get back in there.’ ’’ Matt Beleskey, Ryan Spooner, and defenseman prospect Ryan Lindgren also were shipped to the Blueshirts in the Nash swap . . . Ex-Bruins coach Dave Lewis, whose tenure only lasted the first year that new GM Peter Chiarelli was on the job (2006-07), was canned as Belarus coach after only three games at the Worlds. Lewis had been on the job as national coach for four seasons, but was finally given the heave-ho after starting the tourney with three straight losses, outscored by a collective 17-2 by Sweden, France, and Russia . . . Saying, “It’s not secret I’m a Shark, I bleed teal,’’ Joe Thornton told the San Jose media he would like to return, even at a reduced salary, in 2018-19. Felled by a blown-out knee in late January, Jumbo never made it back to the lineup and watched as the Sharks were ushered out in Round 2 by the Knights. But San Jose at least made it to Round 2 with not a game from Thornton or Patrick Marleau, who packed up last summer for a three-year deal in Toronto as the Leafs’ top-paid player ($6.25 million). Unlike the Sharks, the Leafs again did not survive the first round . . . The NHL last Saturday informed Brad Marchand to keep his tongue to himself. Any more kissing or nuzzling antics, he was told, could subject him to supplemental discipline, in the form of fine and/or suspension. This is a league, mind you, that for decades typically has assessed fighting with only a five-minute major. Some of those punches have inflicted serious injuries, including fractured bones and concussions. But a suspension for a kiss here or a lick there? I think what we have here is a failure to adjudicate.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPD. Material from interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.