Ovechkin has 23 assists in 49 games this season. The 32-year-old is the second player in Capitals history to reach 500 assists; Backstrom has 568.
"It's awesome," Backstrom said. "It's great. I've been playing with him for a long time and I'm just happy for him. He's a great hockey player. He can do it all. I think it's just a nice milestone for him. A lot of guys see him as a goal-scorer, but he's a good passer too. Nice achievement by him and happy for him."
Ovechkin scored his 30th goal of the season in the second period to become the third player to begin his NHL career with 13 straight 30-goal seasons, joining Mike Gartner (15 straight, 1979-94) and Wayne Gretzky (13, 1979-92).
"He's a legendary player," Capitals coach Barry Trotz said of Ovechkin. "He's getting the points, the goals, the assists. Everybody thinks of Alex as a pure goal-scorer, which he is, and he's got to those numbers hundreds of games before other people have reached that number. But you always tend to forget he's a pretty good playmaker as well. Getting 500 assists, there's not too many guys in this league that have as many goals and as many assists, and he's still got a lot of years left. So those numbers are just going to continue to grow."
Selected with the No. 1 pick in the 2004 NHL Draft, Ovechkin has 1,088 points in 970 games and got his 1,000th NHL point last Jan. 11. He is 13 goals from becoming the 20th player to score 600 in the NHL.
NHL.com correspondent Alain Poupart contributed to this report.
