Your savory breakfast links:

• Previews of tonight's swim in the Shark Tank from Vogs, NHL.com, WashTimes, WaPo, SB Nation DC, Peerless, hockey yelling and CRtC, and be sure to check out the San Jose Mercury News (not cool, Bruce) and our SB Nation partner Fear The Fin for more coverage from the other side of tonight's match-up.
  
• Notes and assorted whatnot from yesterday's practice way out west:
  • In general. [Caps365 video (Hunter, Backstrom, Johansson), Dump 'n Chase]
    
  • Nicklas Backstrom should be good to go tonight. [WashTimes]
  • He and Marcus Johansson also felt pretty good about Sweden's victory over Russia on Thursday night... [WashTimes, WaPo]
  • ... but no Tre Kronor for the captain at pracky. [Alex Ovetjkin]
  • Alexander Semin is also ready to play. But, uh, will he? [WashTimes]
• Remember when the NHL was going to realign and put the Caps back in a grouping with their old Patrick Division brethren? Not so fast, my friend. [WaPo, Puck Daddy, DCEx]
• Dmitri Orlov is developing well on and off the ice. [WaPo]
• As we were discussing on Wednesday, blocked shots are up... which isn't necessarily great news. [WaPo, CSNW]
• San Jose is preparing for a resurgent Alex Ovechkin. Fear the Alex, Fins. [San Jose Mercury News]
• Everyone's got their breaking point, with me it's spiders. With Mike Knuble it's... let's not find out. [CSNW]
• Karl Alzner did his weekly hit with LaVar and Dukes yesterday. [106.7 The Fan (audio)]
• The Caps have been a big story in the first half of the season. (Here's to a boring-but-successful second half.) [Globe and Mail]
• Maybe the second half of the season will feature a fantasy-tastic Sasha Semin. Maybe. [NHL.com]
• There was a time that Dean Evason had absolutely amazing hair. [Capitals Voice]
• Like Omar, Caps comin', yo. [Hockey Primetime]
• A handy guide to what's terrible this week. [hockey yelling]
• The Bears and Phantoms took to the ice outdoors at Citizens Bank Park last night, and there's plenty of simply fantastic coverage of the day and night from Tim Leone, Sweetest Hockey on Earth and PA Puck. So click through and lose yourself for a while.
• Evgeny Kuznetsov impressed at the World Juniors. Like, a lot. [ESPN ($)]
• The story of Garrett Haar. [Slightly Chilled]
• On fighting, but, really, on trying to quantify that which doesn't lend itself to quantification. [Peerless]
• Finally, happy 56th birthday to Mike Liut, happy 46th to Randy Burridge, and happy 40th to Donald Brashear.