STOCKHOLM — Peter Forsberg came strolling into the Vassa Eggen restaurant in the heart of downtown here recently pushing a dark-blue baby carriage. Inside was his infant daughter, Lily, who was asleep.

“Just a few weeks old,” Forsberg said, peering inside to make sure she was undisturbed as the wait staff bustled.

The man they call “Foppa” is now a proud papa. Not only of Lily, but of 2½-year-old son Lennox — named after Dad’s favorite boxer, Lennox Lewis.

“Nicole, she still thinks he’s named for a French designer,” Forsberg said, referring to his fiancée. “For me, it’s after Lennox Lewis. But I think he definitely has a chance to be a hockey player. He’s mostly into cars right now, and fire trucks. But he’s not afraid. He’s got a little edge. The thing I like is, when he falls and he hits his face, the first thing he does is grab the car. He takes the car, and then starts crying. I think that’s a good sign.”

Becoming a father is the biggest reason Forsberg, 41, has been able to make a smooth transition into retirement since playing his last game for the Avalanche on Feb. 12, 2011, in Nashville, Tenn. When a balky right foot would allow him to play no more, Forsberg hung up his skates, having played only 708 games.

Other than his knees, Forsberg suffered serious injuries to just about every part of his body. Getting healthy enough to get on the ice was a constant battle, and finally, in 2011, he tired of the fight.

“I was pretty depressed for a while after I quit,” Forsberg said. “It was tough. I’d tried everything, but it didn’t work. I felt sorry for myself for a little while, but it’s a lot better now. I know I tried.”

What he lacked in durability, Forsberg more than made up for with quality. He finished with 885 points (249 goals), eighth on the all-time NHL list for average points per game (1.25). He won two Stanley Cups with the Avs (1996 and 2001) and two Olympic gold medals with Sweden (1994 and 2006), his shootout goal winning the 1994 Games in Lillehammer. In regular-season games, Forsberg’s teams finished with a 396-199-79-34 record, and were 84-67 in the playoffs.

His game was an unusual blend of supreme skill and brute force. He would dazzle opponents one minute with zigzag puck handling, then run over them like a Mack truck. While most players skate in a see-saw, choppy pattern, Forsberg glided with aerodynamic precision, his shoulders and skates aligned with every turn.

“He had just so much skill,” said Avs coach and former teammate Patrick Roy. “But what I liked about Peter so much was his will. Peter thought he could beat everybody one-on-one, and he was a little stubborn with this at times, holding on to the puck. He was special.”

Former linemate Claude Lemieux echoed Roy’s thoughts.

“He was the best position player I ever played with,” said Lemieux. “His skill level was unbelievable, off the charts. But he also had the heart of a champion. Whatever it took to win, Peter would do it. That’s what made him great.”

There was a price to pay for that passion. While most skill players let others fight battles on their behalf, Forsberg came back at opponents himself if he took a questionable hit. That created plenty of bumps and bruises, but the injury that really did him in was his bad right foot. Forsberg went to drastic lengths to try to get his foot surgically repaired to play in the final years of his career.

“One time (with Philadelphia, in 2006), we cut the whole heel bone and moved the whole heel bone; didn’t work. Cut it off again and moved it back,” Forsberg recalled. “It was 2½ months for every one of them. They just sawed it off. It hurt.”

Ankle bones too big

The problems with Forsberg’s right foot started to become chronic in the summer of 2001, after the Avs had won their second Stanley Cup. He had missed the final two rounds of the playoffs because of a ruptured spleen. He was born with ankle bones larger than the usual person — basically they were too wide to fit comfortably into a skate — and he developed inflamed fluid-filled bursa sacs over time from the grinding of the bones against the skate.

He underwent surgery in the offseason to drain fluid in order to be ready for training camp in his native Sweden that fall, but after trying to skate during the first day of camp, he was in more pain than ever. He decided to take a leave of absence to have his foot treated. He returned to the Avs in January, but after being examined, team doctors found a problem with his left foot. He had surgery for that, and it appeared his season was over.

But in one of the most remarkable comebacks in hockey history, Forsberg returned for the 2002 playoffs and led all NHL players in scoring (27 points in 20 games), despite having virtually no practice time.

“I had one contact drill before I started to play. One 2-on-1 drill, and then I went right into the playoffs,” Forsberg said. “But those first few months after I took the leave, I didn’t do much of anything. I was depressed. I didn’t play a game for 11 months.”

His playoff performance still produces head shakes of wonder from those who played alongside him.

“That’s what I will remember about him the most, those playoffs,” said Alex Tanguay, the lone Avs player that season now with the team. “And he wouldn’t even practice much with us. When he was on, he was the most dominant player I’ve ever seen. His puck possession, to his strength, to his ability to possess the puck and still get away from people and beat guys with that reverse check that he kind of made famous, it was phenomenal. Maybe he took bigger shots than he would have if he didn’t play that way, but that’s the way he was. I remember how much fun it was playing with him. It was just spectacular.”

“Not playing all year, just jumping into the playoffs cold and leading everybody in scoring — I mean, that says it all about the talent Peter had,” former Avs captain Joe Sakic said. “His skill level was as high as it got, but Peter also played with heart. He could beat you with finesse or with pure power.”

Forsberg’s skill level was comparable to that of the all-time greats, but he played in an era when opponents could get away with a lot of obstruction fouls, so Forsberg routinely got hacked and whacked with referees looking the other way. His fierce competitive drive was such that he tried to settle many physical scores himself, much to the chagrin of teammates and coaches.

“We were always telling him, ‘Pete, let it go, don’t go back at them, that’s what they want is for you to take a swing back and put you in the box,’ ” former Avs teammate Adam Foote said. “But he was real stubborn. It’s part of what made him so unique and who he was, but there were times when you thought, ‘Oh, no, here we go.’ “

Forsberg returned for the 2002-03 season and won his lone Hart Trophy as league MVP by leading the league in scoring with 106 points. But near the end of the season, the ankle started acting up on him again.

“There were a lot of games where, if we were up a couple goals or more, I would just untie my skates on the bench to relieve the pain, and I was done for the night. If they got a couple of quick ones, then I would tie them back up and go in,” Forsberg said. “I used a new pair of skates almost every game by the end, because the foot felt better if they were hard and kept everything in. If the skates got loose and broken in, I couldn’t skate at all.”

Playing in extreme pain

The Avs were knocked out of the 2003 playoffs by Minnesota, a series during which Forsberg said he was in extreme pain with the right ankle. He would never play more than 60 games in any one season after that and later developed chronic groin problems partially caused by the foot problem.

He also played for the Nashville Predators, but he finished his career in 2011 with the Avs — the second of two late-career comebacks with the team. It lasted only two games, in Columbus and Nashville, but Matt Duchene remembers it well.

“Right before my pregame nap, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I’m playing with Peter Forsberg and Milan Hejduk tonight,’ ” Duchene said. “I used to play on that line on (video game) EA Sports. That was my line, so to play with them in real life was a dream come true.”

Duchene still has the stick Forsberg used from his final game in Nashville.

“I made sure I got that one,” Duchene said. “He didn’t care. He just let me have it.”

Forsberg’s father, Kent, said it was hard watching his son struggle in pain.

“There were some nights in that last couple years when it was just me and him in the hockey arena in (Ornskoldsvik, Sweden), with him trying to skate and get the ankle better. At one point, his mom (Gudrun) just couldn’t take it anymore and said, ‘Peter, stop, it’s not worth it anymore, you don’t have anything to prove.’ But the final decision was always up to Peter.”

Forsberg finally agreed it wasn’t worth it anymore, and he walked away after an aborted two-game comeback with the Avs.

These days, about the only serious physical activity he participates in is a weekly floorball game in Stockholm with a group largely comprised of local firefighters. The game is similar to hockey, using a small ball instead of a puck on a gym floor. Otherwise, he is involved in a variety of businesses ranging from a government-sponsored sports betting operation to an airline to being a co-owner of Swedish League team Modo.

That, and being a full-time dad.

“It’s awesome, having kids. It’s changed a lot with me,” Forsberg said. “At least I got to have a good career while I had it. I got to win a lot of things and got to play for a fantastic organization with great players. I was lucky that way. I’m not bitter. I tried, things happened, and you have to go on.”