Monday Caps Clips: The Hit

Your savory breakfast links:

• First there was "The Goal." Now, "The Hit." [SI, ESPN, The Star, Puck Daddy, Russian Hockey Fans, SBN, Homer McFanboy, 5ive Hole (with a NSFW Freudian typo for the ages), D.C. Landing Strip]
• Of course, that wasn't Alex Ovechkin's first big hit of the tournament. [RMNB]
• And Alex has ruffled some feathers by not talking (much) to the North American media. [Yahoo!, RMNB]
• In case you didn't stay up for the third game of the tripleheader, Sweden blanked Finland 3-0 thanks to Nicklas Backstrom's goal and two assists. [NHL.com]
• What you need to know about the rest of the tourney schedule: "The most likely semi-final matchups are the United States against Finland or the Czech Republic, and Canada or Russia against Sweden or Slovakia." In other words, all three pre-Olympic gold medal favorites are on one side of the bracket, and it ain't the side the U.S. is on. Sweet. [CTV]
• "On defence, the problem is foot speed. Apart from the pairing of Duncan Keith and young Drew Doughty, nothing much shines. Chris Pronger's slowness is becoming an issue." Wonder where they could've gotten a bit quicker on the back end. [CTV]
  
• AO is Freddy Krueger. [SI.com]
• The etymology of Ovechkin. [Alex Ovetjkin]
• Nice Ovi anecdote from @JeffMarek. [Puck Daddy]
• Winter Classic '11 rumor: Nationals Park. Meh. [HockeyJournal.com]
• The brief overview of what the Caps have in Hershey... [NHL.com]
• ... but there's no mention of Oskar Osala, which is fine, because this is world's better than the one-liner you'd have gotten anyway. [Corey Masisak]
• Mathieu Perreault and Francois Bouchard continue to be inseparable (other than, y'know, when one of them is in Washington). [TheAHL.com]
• Speaking of the Bears, they've now won an AHL-record 20 consecutive home games. [Patriot-News, John Walton Hockey, Ed Frankovic]
• A good send off for good folks. [Peerless]
• Finally, happy 35th birthday to Patrick Boileau, happy 39th to Jason Marshall, happy 45th to Joe Reekie, and happy 57th to Al Hangsleben.