Your savory breakfast links:
- Thoughts on Eric Fehr’s power play presence and the Caps’ penchant for giving up shots and shots and shots in this week’s mailbag. Keep those questions coming – you ask, we answer! [Rink]
- Previews of tonight’s dance with the Devils from Vogs, NHL.com, AP and Peerless, and be sure to check out our SB Nation pals over at In Lou We Trust for the other side of tonight’s match-up.
- Alex Ovechkin is “questionable” for tonight’s game with that nagging lower-body injury. Which probably means so are the Caps’ chances of winning tonight, unfortunately. [WaPo, CSNW, NBC4]
- Turns out Martin Erat isn’t the only Czech with Caps’ ties who is frustrated with his ever-changing lineup. [NJ.com]
- Your Capitals Minute for today. [Capitals Voice]
- As former Caps’ coach Bruce Boudreau‘s Ducks continue to roll, he’s hoping to avoid the pitfalls of 2010. Gee, what if they draw the St. Louis Blues in the first round? …no reason. [NHL.com]
- Time to trade Mike Green… because clearly the solution to the Caps’ problems is to move one of their better players from one of their weaker areas. [WaPo (Wise)]
- Counterpoint: it’s not time to trade Mike Green. [RMNB]
- If you want to pick on Ovechkin (and you really shouldn’t) you might want to bring something more substantial than just “his plus-minus is bad.” Here’s why. [Capitals Voice]
- Evaluating the current state of the Caps. State of disaster? Emergency? Denial? [WNST]
- News and notes from yesterday’s practice:
- In general. [Monumental video (Oates, Brouwer, Alzner, Rinkside Update/Schmidt)]
- The big news of the day – no Ovechkin on the ice yet again. Ruh roh. [CSNW, NBC4]
- 50 games into the 2013-14 season, the Caps find themselves at a crossroads… [CSNW]
- …but there is no panic from the team or from the coaches. Yet. They’ll catch up to the rest of us at some point, don’t worry. [WaPo, Express, WashTimes, CSNW]
- Talking George McPhee, rookie coaches, the Caps’ defense and more in a mini-mailbag. [Talk the Red]
- Prospect watch:
- Removed from the Caps’ three-headed goalie monster, Philipp Grubauer is focused back on the Hershey Bears. [Patriot-News]
- Meanwhile fellow reassigned player Steve Oleksy is, unsurprisingly, approaching his return to Hershey with the best of attitudes. [Patriot-News]
- Injured forward Stanislav Galiev is making progress as he works to heal from his shoulder injury. [Patriot-News]
- Over in Russia, Evgeny Kuznetsov played in his first game in a month after injuring his knee. Just in time for the Olymp-…oh wait. [RMNB]
- Checking in on some of the Caps’ lesser-known prospects. [Talk the Red]
- Two weeks from now, Alex Ovechkin begins a new quest as he attempts to lead Team Russia to gold-medal glory in Sochi. [Moscow Times]
- In fantasy news, a former Caps’ pivot is having a rough run of late… as is a current Caps’ pivot. [Puck Daddy]
- Ted Leonsis has a vision for the future of sports and technology: wow the fans. Sounds very cool… although a championship or two would probably have the same effect. Just saying. [WTOP, WaPo]
- Zach Parise gets a boost in his training for the Olympics from the awesome power of chocolate milk. And he does it all in the beautiful confines of Kettler Capitals Iceplex:
- Finally, happy 65th birthday to Guy Charron, happy 41st to Chris and Peter Ferraro, happy 44th to Jim Mathieson, and birthday (and healing) wishes to Jack Hillen, who turns 28 today.
