Tuesday Caps Clips: Let The Games Begin

Your savory breakfast links:

• Today in Olympic hockey: USA vs. Switzerland (3:00p Eastern, USA), Canada vs. Norway (7:30p Eastern, CNBC), Russia vs. Latvia (Midnight Eastern, CNBC)
• “If we’ll meet in the Olympics, I will kill him.” That would be Alex Ovechkin talking about Nicklas Backstrom. [Alex Ovetjkin]
• Maybe that’s why, in Glenn Healey‘s world, AO is KGB-trained. [CBC (video, ~3:52)]
• Checking in with the Caps’ Russian contingent… [CI, Alex Ovetjkin, Alex Ovetjkin]
• … and a former Cap on that squad. [CTV]
• AO will wear an “A” and skate with Pavel Datsyuk and Alexander Semin. [Alex Ovetjkin]
• Ovechkin on Jaromir Jagr and the Czechs (including his Czech teammates). [RMNB]
• Flaming skate blades with a deranged sheep’s head on one of them? Nice. [CI]
• The Veep answers a tough political question. [Alex Ovetjkin]
• The Caps definitely needed this break, and should be good-to-go coming out of it. [Corey Masisak, The Hockey News]
• The Boss on the state of his team. [Ted’s Take]
• Elliotte Friedman hits the nail squarely on the head on Janssen/Bradley: “Cam Janssen’s hit on Matt Bradley is Exhibit A of what needs to be removed from hockey. Don’t give me the excuse Bradley wasn’t looking. Why would he? He was following the play. I love hitting, but come on.” [CBC]
• On Sid vs. Alex. [Ed Frankovic’s Blog]
• Ovechkin is well on his way to a Hart three-peat… [5ive Hole, FanHouse]
• … which isn’t surprising, considering the kind of season he’s putting together. [BtN]
• Setting the table (a familiar setting, in fact) as the Caps head towards the trade deadline. [TSN]
• Fresh power rankings, with the Caps down one to second at CBC and down two to third at The Hockey News.
• Darren Pang (who really could use an editor) talks Caps. [Hockeychats (h/t KK)]
• If the Caps do feel the need to make a move in goal, expect them to ask about Marty Turco. [NY Post]
• More on goalies the Caps could look at, and a very intriguing player is apparently available in C’bus: Milan Jurcina Jan Hejda. [Ottawa Sun]
• Mike Green isn’t one of the five best defensemen in hockey. [Versus]
• Revisiting The Snub. [RMNB]
• Pens fan writes ESPN to complain about AO’s empty-net-padded goal totals. Yawn. [ESPN]
• Nice editorial from Saturday’s Post. [WaPo]
• If you can focus on something other than trying to find a postage-stamp-sized space on his uniform that doesn’t have advertising on it, check out what Michael Nylander is up to these days. [FanShot]
• Bear Tracks! [LDN]
• Checking in on a handful of the Caps’ top prospects. [FanPost (good stuff, YNC!)]
• Happy 34th birthday, Colin Forbes and happy 56th, Paul Nicholson.
• Finally, we’re starting something new today – an Off-Topic Open Thread (or OTOT) posted directly below this post – to try to give you all somewhere to talk about whatever you want to talk about. The basic ground rules, then, are that comments to substantive posts should be about or closely related to the topic of the post; comments to Clips posts can be about anything hockey-related; and comments to Game Day Open Threads or OTOTs can be about anything at all. Let’s give it a try, shall we?