Your savory breakfast links:
- Sayonara, season. With the gear stowed and the players headed for their cottages and dachas, there’s not much left to do besides ponder lessons learned and read the tea-leaved future:
- Stability behind the bench and a familiar playbook in place will allow the players to train with confidence and purpose this summer. It will also allow the front office to work on shaping the roster with confidence and purpose. [WaPo]
- Point: The roster may not need that much work at all. [WashTimes]
- Counterpoint: Actually, it does. Stop deluding yourselves, people. [CBS DC (audio), DC Sports Bog (transcription), OFB, DC Pro Sports Report]
- Will that roster include Matt Hendricks? It’s not immediately clear. [RMNB]
- It will nearly certainly not feature Tom Poti, who states he will seek to make a roster elsewhere. [WashTimes, PHT]
- Perhaps it should consider better support for Alex Ovechkin… [WashTimes]
- … and fewer pretty perimeter players, for crying out loud. Crash. The. Net. [DSP]
- Speaking of Alex, the single game he was able to play for Team Russia went just about as well for his team as Game Seven against the Rangers did… [IIHF, RMNB, Puck Daddy]
- … and only now do we learn that he played Games 6 & 7, plus the game for Russia, on a broken foot. Eesh. [@CSNWashington (pic), WaPo, CSNW, RMNB, Alex Ovetjkin]
- “Hindsight is 20/20 and looking back now, jeez, if I could’ve done it in January and been good to go by mid-February, late February, yeah I would’ve done it.” Brooks Laich reflects on his season on the sidelines. [WashTimes]
- Another question for next year – whither Tom Wilson? [CSNW, WashTimes]
- If John Tortorella would just come back here, Adam Oates would totally bite his legs off. [CSNW, Eye on Hockey]
- Finally, best wishes to Stephen Whyno, who has announced he’s leaving the Washington Times’ Caps beat to become a national reporter for the Canadian Press. [@SWhyno]