Nicklas Backstrom wasn’t on the ice when his longtime teammate, Alex Ovechkin, scored his milestone 800th career goal or when the Capitals captain passed Gordie Howe to become the second-greatest goal-scorer in NHL history.
Recovering from hip surgery, Backstrom has not played a single game this season, but he has made sure to still have a presence as much as he could during these moments. Backstrom was front and center during a beer bath after the 800 career goals game, notably being the first player to hug him inside the locker room. After passing Howe, Backstrom greeted Ovi in the hallway and stood by his locker room stall as the team honored him.
Backstrom, who has assisted on 278 of Ovechkin’s 802 career goals, was not done showing his appreciation. On Twitter, Backstrom posted a rare tweet, featuring a fancam video with the caption, “#802 @ovi8 #goat”.
#802 @ovi8 #goat pic.twitter.com/OKnsz4j9B5
— Nicklas Backstrom (@backstrom19) December 24, 2022
The video showed Backstrom assisting on several of Ovechkin’s goals, holding up the Stanley Cup together, and embracing a bunch of times during their long careers together.
Backstrom also wrote out his feelings about Ovechkin’s success and talked about why they’ve had so much success together on NHL.com. Of course, even in the writing, Backstrom shunned any credit.
“I’m super happy for him,” Backstrom wrote. “Ovi deserves all the credit. That’s who he is — a natural goal-scorer. It’s just so natural for him to score and he just keeps racking up the goals.”
In trying to explain his greatness as a goal-scorer, Backstrom says in the article that Ovechkin is more than a guy who scores on his patented one-timers from his office on the power play. Backstrom said Ovechkin’s shot is “unpredictable” and that the Russian superstar “has one of the biggest sweet spots of anyone that I’ve played with” who can “shoot it from different angles.”
Backstrom also wrote about his personal relationship with Ovechkin and how it’s changed over the years as they’ve become fathers.
Those first few years we hung out a lot and we were both single. We lived closed by and we drove each other to games. We had a blast. A lot of fun moments.
We have the same relationship now that we had back then, but right now our lives involve kids. So we have other responsibilities off the ice vs. hanging out, going out for dinner and stuff like that. But we still have the same conversations, same kind of dialogue in the locker room or when we’re on the road.
That evolution is part of life I think.
Backstrom, who has been rehabbing his surgically repaired hip, appears likely to soon try and add to his assist totals on Ovechkin goals soon. The Swedish center is fully practicing with the Capitals again and recently skated on the first line during a recent skate with Ovechkin and Tom Wilson.
Backstrom and Ovechkin have spent their entire decade-plus years together in Washington. The two stars won the Stanley Cup together in 2018.
Full Coverage of Alex Ovechkin’s 802nd goal
Screenshot: @Capitals/Twitter
Read More: ‘Ovi deserves all the credit’