Your savory breakfast links:
- Previews of tonight’s game featuring the NHL’s top two post-lockout goal scorers from Vogs, NHL.com, Peerless, Cap Centre and Hockey Mom, and be sure to check out our SB Nation partner Bird Watchers Anonymous for pregame coverage from the other side of tonight’s match up.
- Tuvan Hillbilly translated an Ilya Kovalchuk interview for the folks over at BWA and it makes for a good read (there are a couple of Alex Ovechkin mentions, of course). [BWA]
- Speaking of Kovalchuk and Ovechkin, more on the shows the two of them have been putting on so far this season. [Cap Centre]
- Yesterday’s big news, of course, was the Caps re-assigning Michael Nylander to the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL
so that the Russians can see that he still knows how to skateon a conditioning assignment that George McPhee and Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland worked out earlier in the week. [Grand Rapids Press] - When Nylander played his last AHL game, AO was eight years old.
- If you want to watch Nylander’s Grand Rapids debut and/or Hershey at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, AHL.com is holding a free preview of its online broadcast service, “AHL Live” on Friday night. Sweet. [Snapshots]
- Nylander’s conditioning stint will end about a week before the Griffins play the Milwaukee Admirals… and Nolan Yonkman.
- Pictures from the past two days’ practices (the last picture of Nylander in Caps gear?). [Caps In Pictures Tuesday and yesterday]
- The Caps also will formally recall Keith Aucoin from Hershey today and may or may not have to recall another forward (perhaps Alexandre Giroux), dependingupon the health of both Alex Semin and Boyd Gordon. [Patriot-News]
- Speaking of Gordon, he might get less press than some of his teammates, but it’s a pretty important year for him. [VFtCS]
- Mega Nicklas Backstrom piece, including this quote from Ovechkin that I’m sure Nicky’s agent won’t soon forget, “If I play without him, maybe I don’t get too many points, maybe I don’t get too many goals.” C’mon, Alex. Play it cool. [Washington Post]
- As good as the Caps were last regular season, they were only four games above .500 in one-goal games (and are off to a rough start in those nail-biters this year). Then again, two seasons ago, the Cup Finalists were both exactly at .500 in such games, and last year they were an average of just 4.5 games above. Huh. [Puck Prospectus]
- Ovechkin: still clutch-y after all these years. [The Hockey News]
- Of course it’s early, but only once in team history have the Caps had a higher “ecstasy rating” for a full season than they do right now. [Peerless]
- “We can look at teams like Chicago and Washington and wonder about their goaltending, but that is the type of team that has won the Cup recently while teams like Vancouver and New Jersey have not.” Snap! (Though those two in the past decade that the Devils actually did win… uh, yeah.) [Brodeur is a Fraud]
- John Buccigross’s money is on Sidney Crosby to his 1,000 points before Alex Ovechkin does (despite AO’s current 31-point lead) because of “the ‘violent’ way Ovechkin plays” which means “injury is inevitable.” So far in his career, Alex has missed two games due to injury while Sid has missed 37. [ESPN]
- The NHL on Versus is killing it (well, relatively), and the Caps have played in two of their three most-watched games so far this season. [Puck the Media]
- We FanShotted (FanShot?) this yesterday, but the code didn’t work for some folks, so here again are Mike Knuble and Lindsay Czarniak making bad chili selections (Terlingua Red, FTW). [NBC4]
- Shaone Morrisonn and his dog. [Washington Times]
- If he keeps getting great press like this, Dick Patrick won’t be “unsung” much longer. [NHL.com]
- You know Michelle, the Caps’ in-game hostess (I didn’t make that title up, either), but now you can find out a bit more about her. [Storming the Crease]
- A look at center ice stripes. Cool. [Uni Watch]
- On this date back in 2003, the rebuild officially began (as far as I’m concerned, at least) when the Caps traded Steve Konowalchuk and a pick to Colorado for Bates Battaglia and Jonas Johansson.
- Finally, happy 29th birthday, Matt Pettinger and happy 41st to Terry Yake.