Sabres spoil Nicklas Backstrom, Washington Capitals night

Nicklas Backstrom, Washington Capitals Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

The Washington Capitals pulled all the stops for yesterday’s special day… up until the start of the game. When players took the ice for warmups, they did a cool thing for Nicklas Backstrom, forming a stick tunnel before he entered through. For Backstrom it was his 1,000th game.

Players wore special #19 jerseys during warmups and on their way to the arena wore these special “N1KY” t-shirts. You got to wonder what Backstrom was thinking during all of this since he doesn’t quite like the attention.

After warmups there was a pregame ceremony where Backstrom was presented a commemorative stick and a gift card to…