Young NHL players like Colorado's Matt Duchene, left, are being nurtured by veterans like Adam Foote, right.

DENVER — Laundry day in the Foote family falls in the middle of the week and Colorado Avalanche forward Matt Duchene dutifully brings his clothes up from the basement to be washed, folded and returned.

All free of charge by the wife of teammate and captain Adam Foote. It’s just one of the many perks of living under their roof.

Foote has opened his house the last two seasons to the dynamic 19-year-old scorer, who also enjoys home-cooked meals and companionship with the family’s two young boys.

Then there’s this: The mentoring Duchene receives from the 39-year-old Foote at and away from the rink.

This is simply part of hockey’s culture, prepping and preparing the next wave of players.

From Duchene living with Foote, to Penguins star Sidney Crosby once residing with Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux, from Sharks captain Joe Thornton guiding San Jose’s youngsters, to Red Wings defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom assisting fellow Swedes’ transition into the league, there’s a nurturing nature to the hard-hitting NHL.

Instead of sticking young players with big checks (think Cowboys rookie Dez Bryant’s dinner tab in Dallas), veterans teach them the art of big checks.

Just like they were once instructed.

“There’s just good hockey karma in paying it back,” said Brendan Shanahan, a 21-year veteran who retired last season and now works in the league’s front office. “It’s a matter of being thankful and being hopeful you can have a positive impact on the person, not just on the hockey player. It’s just the right thing to do.”

After all, “hockey players are just good guys,” former Avalanche standout Peter Forsberg explained, grinning.

“It’s tough for a young kid coming into the league,” Forsberg said. “We all know how it was for us when we came into the league.”

That’s why veterans take younger players under their wings, open up their homes and their knowledge of the game, even if it might come back to cost them a job down the road.

“At the end of the day, we’re all in this together. We can’t win without them,” said Foote, who was asked by the team to host Duchene last season and enjoyed it so much he extended the invitation another year. “And when your career is all said and done, you want to be able to walk away and say you did things the right way.”

Not that housing a teenager has been easy for Foote and his wife, Jennifer, who already are kept busy by their 8-year-old and 11-year-old.

“I now know exactly what I’m going to go through when my boys reach those teenage years, where they have everything figured out,” Foote said.

To earn his keep, Duchene performs chores around the house, helps shuttle the boys home from school and entertains them, taking the kids to Nuggets games and working with them on stick drills in the backyard.

Now if only Duchene would let the dogs out.

“He comes home when we’re not in the house and he won’t let them out,” Foote said, feigning astonishment. “That probably bothers me more than the dishes.”

And one of the reasons living with Foote is paying off, the same way the experience did for Crosby when he resided with Lemieux. Crosby picked up as much at home from Lemieux as he did at the rink.

“That helped a lot,” Crosby said. “There’s so many ups and downs over the course of a hockey season, so just trying to keep everything pretty even-keel is real important.”