For over the last decade, Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom have been the Capitals one-two punch and are arguably the greatest players in team history. As the two legends approach their mid-thirties, they are re-writing the Caps record books and Monday against the New York Islanders, Backstrom reached another milestone.
Backstrom tallied his 825th, 826th, and 827th career points on a trio of assists. Point number 826, a primary assist on a Tom Wilson power-play goal, moved the Swedish center to second on the Capitals all-time points list, leapfrogging another franchise great, Peter Bondra.
Backstrom now trails only longtime linemate Alex Ovechkin in franchise points (1,150).
Backstrom’s first assist came in the first period and it extended Tom Wilson’s goal-streak to four games. Running a set play, Backstrom found Wilson curling at the blue line. After collecting the puck, Wilson raced into the offensive zone and beat Thomas Greiss clean to tie the game 1-1.
Backstrom’s second primary assist of the game gave him sole possession of second place. Finding Tom Wilson again at TJ Oshie’s normal spot on the power play, Tom one-timed a shot past Greiss to the far corner of the net to make it 3-1.
Finally, Backstrom got a third point, a secondary assist, on Alex Ovechkin’s empty-net goal.
After the game, Backstrom posed with the milestone puck and posed with Lars Eller and Tom Wilson, the other players who figured in the historic point.
Wilson called Backstrom “one of the best leaders and teammates” on Twitter.
One of the best leaders and teammates. Congrats @backstrom19 on a big night #history pic.twitter.com/k5pV9Vb2LF
— Tom Wilson (@tom_wilso) November 27, 2018
Backstrom now sits 13th in the NHL in points this season with 28. The Capitals have now won six-straight games.
8️⃣2️⃣6️⃣ for @backstrom19!
2nd all-time in Franchise Points, passing the great @PeterBondra12! #ALLCAPS @LeidosInc pic.twitter.com/w2FwxBAzuU
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) November 27, 2018
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Islanders
Headline photo: @Capitals
Russian Machine Never Breaks is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.
All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)– unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.
Share On