“Hey! They spelled my name wrong! What gives!” (Photo credit: hctorpedo.ru)

When Nicklas Backstrom made his debut for Dynamo Moscow Monday, he was surrounded by familiar faces. Alex Ovechkin flanked him at left wing on the first line and former teammate Semyon Varlamov was in net for Lokomotiv. Dynamo had no trouble getting over that potential awkwardness however, turning in one of their most solid wins on the year, a 3-0 shutout of Lokomotiv. Ovechkin, who sure was in a punchy mood that day, had a goal and an assist. Backstrom also contributed a helper.

On Wednesday, the Caps reunion continued as Dynamo traveled to Nizhny Novgorod for the first ever BATTLE OF THE SASHAS © (imagine the Super Bowl but on ice and everyone wears pants that are half sweatpants/half jeans).

Unfortunately for Ovechkin, the trip to see his other BFF Alex Semin didn’t go so well.

Ovi documents his destroyed hotel room.

The night before the game, Ovi’s hotel room in Nizhny Novgorod (which he shared with everybody’s favorite singing hockey player Mikhail Anisin) had a hot water pipe burst and it flooded his room. That proved to be a bad omen as Sasha Minor’s Torpedo destroyed Dynamo 4-0 the next day. Semin had two assists — his first points for his new team — and a rare, uncharacteristic stick penalty.

Semin’s first fancy assist comes at the 1:57 mark. His second one comes at 2:22. Backstrom also has a sick pass at 4:17.

Backstrom and Ovechkin each had two shots in about 17 minutes of ice time for Dynamo.

The biggest news of the day might have been Backstrom’s revelation to Gefle Dagblad of gd.se that he never wanted #99 as his number. As translated by Japers’ Rink’s Malin Andersson, Backstrom said:

The club had already registered me to wear 99 when I got there. I told them right away that I didn’t want to play with that number. It just didn’t feel good, but it was too late to change it with so little notice. I will play two games wearing number 99, after that I’m going to change it. It will be something in the sixties.

So this may have been the last time we see Nicky in Gretzky’s number. Sigh.

Photo credit: dynamo.ru