Your savory breakfast links:

● "Or else." Per NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on behalf of ownership, a new CBA must be ratified by September 15. [Puck Daddy]

● It is "bold predictions" time, and the Caps' involves offense. [USA Today]

● It is also "key questions" time, and the Caps' involves ... offense. [NHL.com]

● There may be three announcers you'd rather hear calling a hockey game than Joe Beninati, but is Rick Jeanneret really one of them? [THW]

● Nicklas Backstrom scored a goal with an assist from Marcus Johansson in the annual Swedish stars' Icebreakers charity hockey tournament. (An interesting if unrelated note in the story is that there seems to be a Euro players' working group meeting in Barcelona for CBA issues.) [Dagbladet.se (link in Swedish)]

● The summer of Carlson continues. [Caps Outsider]

● Caps Kiddies update:

○ Team USA beat Sweden 10-2. Travis Boyd had a primary and a secondary assist for two points and Garrett Haar went pointless. Thomas DiPauli was a healthy scratch, and Filip Forsberg served a two-minute penalty for hooking. The Swedes play the Finns tomorrow, and then Finland hosts USA on Saturday to complete the NJEC. [USA Hockey, and again]

○ Team Canada prevailed over Team Russia 3-2 in the first game in Yaroslavl. Tom Wilson played on the fourth line and finished pointless. [THW, CSNW]

● Catching up with Chris Clark. [Caps]

● How a Brit became a Caps fan and blogger. [Puck Buddys]

● Finally, happy big 4-0 to Corey Hirsch (he of the highest career save percentage in franchise history) and happy 56th birthday to Mike McEwen.