3 - Number of assists earned by Nicklas Backstrom in last night’s win, giving him career helper #599, 600, and 601 and fittingly enough given the venue, pushing him past Henrik Sedin for the most assists since the start of the 2007-08 season.
Backstrom becomes the first player from the 2006 draft class to hit the milestone (and will likely be the only one hitting it anytime soon, as he leads second-place Claude Giroux by a significant margin) - and he did so with pretty impressive efficiency:
Not surprisingly, a significant portion of Backstrom’s helpers have been earned on Alex Ovechkin goals; 234 of those 601 assists, in fact, set up goals by the Caps’ captain - including two of his three (and fittingly the milestone assist itself) last night.