Your savory breakfast links:
- Recaps and other assorted musings on last night’s shootout loss from us (and the night in GIFs), Vogs, Monumental video (Oates, Ovechkin, Green, Ward), NHL.com, WaPo, Peerless, DSP, RMNB and @bridgetds (pics), and from the West Coast side of things, JFTC.
- Dustin Penner is a beauty. [Mayor’s Manor]
- Your Capitals Minute for today. [Capitals Voice]
- News and notes from yesterday’s pregame SoCal skate:
- In general. [Monumental video (Oates, Chimera, Rinkside Update/Hillen)]
- Farewell, creepy white mask – Jaroslav Halak has a stylish new lid in beautiful Caps colors. [Monumental video, Caps OT (and again), Capitals Hill]
- Speaking of Halak, he’s only been on the team for about two weeks appears to be settling in with the Caps just fine. [WaPo]
- The Caps will need a little bit of luck if they’re going to make it to the postseason for a seventh consecutive season. Winning some games wouldn’t hurt, either. [CSNW]
- As his first full season nears its end, Tom Wilson is learning when to pick up the physicality (or drop the gloves) and when not to. [CSNW]
- Halak, Evgeny Kuznetsov, checking in on the prospect scene and more on this week’s What the Puck podcast. [Capitals Hill]
- Talking with Connor Carrick about his up-and-down rookie season with the Caps. [RMNB]
- Ten NHLers you might not realize were having ridiculously good seasons. Well… nine you might not know about and one with whom you’re definitely familiar. [Puck Daddy]
- Great rundown of everything you’ve ever wanted to know about on-ice percentages, but were afraid to ask. [Grantland (DGB)]
- Exploring shot differentials across the NHL’s thirty teams. If you’ve watched at all this season, you’ll know exactly where to look for the Caps check in on this particular list… [PHT]
- Taking a deeper look at the rookie class between the pipes, in this, the year of the goalie. [NHL.com]
- Rounding up the prospects:
- Andre Burakovsky finished the OHL regular season strong, and gets his first crack at playoff action tonight when Erie kicks off their first-round series against Saginaw. [RMNB]
- Speaking of playoffs, the Bears have a razor-thin margin for error if they want to make the postseason. It’s so cute when they try to be like the Caps, isn’t it? [Patriot-News]
- Negotiations are ongoing to extend the affiliation between the Caps and Hershey Bears, which is up after the 2013-14 season. [Patriot-News]
- More on the Caps’ signing of free-agent goaltender Pheonix Copley. [WaPo]
- Really moving story about how fans in Orebro, Sweden showed their support for Jared Aulin and his mom as she battles cancer back in the States. [Puck Daddy]
- Finally, happy 47th birthday to Al “Wild Thing” Iafrate and happy 22nd to Patrick Wey.