Nicklas Backstrom’s 1,000 games make him a Capitals pillar. For Backstrom, it means he’s home.

It is natural, with so many years and so many games, for a town to love a player. That’s certainly D.C.’s relationship with Backstrom. This is the only place that truly appreciates him for what he is — a Hall of Famer already, one of the best two-way centers of his era, even if he would never identify himself as such.

But 1,000 games must mean an athlete has appreciation, too.

“The best way to say it,” said Ryan Zimmerman, one of the few who can relate, “is that the respect is reciprocal.”

Zimmerman, approaching 1,700 games into his Washington Nationals career, knows not only the territory Backstrom is treading. He knows Nicky. He knows the city. He knows the life. He knows that for an athlete to so tether himself to a town, it takes more than time, more than success, more than the game Thursday at Capital One Arena against Buffalo. It takes relationships. It takes roots.

That’s what Backstrom — what Nicky — has in Washington now.

“He’s the most genuine athlete I’ve ever met, in so many different ways,” said Sherif Abdalla, a McLean native. “He’s so humble. He doesn’t want the spotlight. He’s like a rock. If he tells you he’s going to do something, he does it.”

“All of the talk about truly how humble he is,” said T.J. Doremus, another McLean native, “it couldn’t be more true.”

These are not the teammates with whom Backstrom has played over the years — Alex Ovechkin, there from Day 1, offering drives to the rink before Backstrom could drive himself. Rather, they are the friendships he has forged here, deep friendships, the kinds rooted in family vacations, long dinners at each other’s houses, in the joy of kids arriving and becoming friends themselves. These are the guys who know Backstrom not as No. 19 in the red sweater but as Nicky, father of three, friend who would do anything — including change their own kids’ diapers.

But we’ll get to that.

“I’m just so, so proud of him,” Abdalla said.

These 1,000 games, these 14 seasons, they define Backstrom on the ice. Among Capitals, only Ovechkin has played more games and rung up more points. No Capital has more assists. Indeed, since Backstrom arrived for the 2007-08 season, no one in the NHL has more than his 714 assists. And yet who outside the DMV would guess that?

The scope of his career is maybe best displayed in that his first helper — in his first game — was to fellow Swede Michael Nylander, who now has two sons in the NHL. Bookend that with Backstrom’s most recent assist: to Anthony Mantha, the forward acquired five minutes ago to help the Caps’ latest Stanley Cup drive. In between those two Backstrom setups, there’s a lot of Caps heartache, heroism and history.

But that’s the hockey, the stuff that’s obvious to be appreciated because he helped change what the sport means to D.C. What’s unseen and unsaid: the struggles to adjust to a new country and a new culture. This is a journey, right? Backstrom, now, is so familiar, so sure of himself, that when he wanted to negotiate the contract extension that would effectively make him a Capital for life — five years, $46 million through 2024-25 — he did it himself.

But when Backstrom arrived as a first-round draft choice, he was just 19, fresh from Gavle, Sweden, his hometown north of Stockholm. Imagining that version of Backstrom sticking up for himself — in the United States, on his own, to his bosses — is almost inconceivable.

“It was actually a little difficult in the beginning,” Backstrom said last week by phone. “I actually didn’t know anything about the culture, the country. You’re excited to be here to play, but there’s a lot of things that you have to get used to. I’m not a good cook, so …”

Fortunately for Backstrom, the Caps still had his countryman Nylander, who invited him to his house for meal after meal. In the middle of his rookie season, they traded for iconic Russian star Sergei Fedorov, who all but parented the “Young Guns” from those days: Ovechkin and Backstrom and Alexander Semin and Mike Green and the rest. Fedorov, in his late 30s at the time, befriended Abdalla, who in those days ran several D.C. restaurants and night spots. That led to Abdalla’s friendships with the outgoing Green and, eventually, the more reticent Backstrom.

“Nick has always been shy and thought that his English wasn’t great,” Abdalla said.

“My English was brutal,” Backstrom said.

“He spoke perfect English, but he thought it was an impediment,” Abdalla continued. “He was very uncomfortable around other people because of it. But as he’s kind of grown into more of a leadership role with the team, as he has felt more comfortable in his surroundings, it’s turned into a strength. He might not say very much, but when he does talk, it matters.”

That value system comes from somewhere. In 2018, in the wake of the Caps’ elusive Stanley Cup championship, Doremus discovered the source. Backstrom invited Doremus back to Gavle for his day with the Cup. That day, it poured, torrential rains. As Doremus and other invitees awaited the van the Backstrom family had arranged to transport them from their hotel to the Backstrom home, the group peered out the window. Here came Anders and Catrin Backstrom, Nick’s parents, carrying five or six umbrellas.

“Right there, we see why Nick is the way he is,” Doremus said. “It’s this huge day for the family, and these people are worried about their guests getting rained on. It’s the servant heart. The gratitude, just the humility of the whole thing, was really, truly eye-opening.”

Now there’s another generation to which he can pass on those values. Backstrom and his fiancee, Liza, have daughter Haley, 7; son Vince, 4; and newly arrived daughter Alizee, who turned 1 last month. When the Doremuses, the Abdallas and the Backstroms — often joined by the family of Caps defenseman John Carlson or of Green or even of relative newcomer Carl Hagelin — were on vacation during the NHL’s all-star break, the other fathers were stunned at Nick’s devotion to the kids.

Not just his kids. All the kids.

“I can’t emphasize enough how Nick is the most incredible father you’ll ever see,” Abdalla said. “Our wives make us feel bad because Nick will be with his kids and our kids the entire day. He’ll change diapers — not just for his kids but for our kids.”

He has ingratiated himself into his team. He has ingratiated himself into his city. He has ingratiated himself into a tight circle of friends who don’t care that he plays hockey but only care that he’s the person he is.

There are precious few athletes who can understand what that means — to commit yourself to one team in one town, making yourself not just a franchise pillar but a civic institution. Zimmerman knows.

“There’s a reverse respect there,” said Zimmerman, the Nationals’ forever first baseman, who joins Ovechkin as the only pro athletes to predate Backstrom in D.C. “Fans respect the players who play for only one team. There might have been opportunities to make more money in free agency, and it’s hard for fans to understand what taking $6 million instead of $10 million or whatever really means.

“But what matters is the respect goes both ways. As players, we’re just as appreciative of all the people who have supported us for all that time as the people who have supported us are that we stayed.”

Zimmerman knows of what he speaks because his debut here was in September 2005. But he also knows of what he speaks because he and Backstrom — and Ovechkin, Green and others — used to have the run of the town. They were in their 20s. They were single. They were stars. Stay out and stay up? Sure.

They’re still stars. But part of getting to 1,000 games is settling down, too. Zimmerman and Backstrom still see each other now, but the terms and the topics are different. Both are golf fiends, so Backstrom might host Zimmerman at Bethesda Country Club, where he’s a member, or Zimmerman might bring Backstrom to Congressional, where he belongs.

They aren’t there because one’s a Capital and one’s a National. They’re there because they share a common love — and a community. It has evolved from those days when they ran around town after hours into a mature discussion.

“Now we can go out to dinner with our wives, have a good bottle of wine, talk about whatever — not sports but maybe wine or kids and family — and go home,” Zimmerman said. “As opposed to back then, when we wouldn’t have good wine, we were single — and we wouldn’t go home early.”

Home. What that means, Backstrom has learned, can evolve over time. In the old days, as soon as the Caps lost in the playoffs, Nick was on the first flight to Stockholm. Now he has three kids, all born in America. The playoffs might end, but the family remains.

“They see Sweden as vacation in the summertime,” Backstrom said. “You go there for a couple of months, and that’s it.”

He has a house in Arlington, where the kids are being raised. He has friends here whose lives are intertwined with his. He has a life separate from sports, and it’s here.

Play 1,000 games in one city, and there’s more than just the hockey that matters. There’s a history that makes it — can he really say it? — home.

“I’ve lived here for almost half my life now,” Backstrom said. “So I think I see D.C. as home for me — and my family does, too. We’ll see what happens when I’m retired. The only thing I can say [is] I love the city — and I would not want to go anywhere else.”

Which is perfect. Because where else would the sporting fans of Washington, D.C., want Nicklas Backstrom — after 1,000 games and hopefully hundreds more — but right here at home?

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