Your savory breakfast links:
- Today in Olympic hockey: Belarus vs. Switzerland (3:00p Eastern, USA), Germany vs. Canada (7:30p Eastern, CNBC), Latvia vs. Czech Republic (10:00p Eastern, CNBC), Norway vs. Slovakia (11:55p Eastern, CNBC)
- In case you missed it early last evening, Ken Campbell may have joined Mike Milbury as a #1 seed in the upcoming “Say Something Stupid About AO to Anger Caps Fans” tournament. [FanShot, with more at Alex Ovetjkin]
- NHL.com’s got it good as the exclusive source of Alex Ovechkin English-language quotes, eh? [NHL.com]
- Vladislav Tretiak on Ovi: “He risks injury and wasting energy by trying to check everybody.” [CP]
- Here’s another interview with AO (wait, but I thought…) that overlaps the last one a bit but discusses Russia’s superiority to the rest of the world in producing attractive women. [AP]
- KHL boss Alexander Medvedev on whether AO could bolt the NHL for the K: “”No, he cannot. If there is a mutual respect of contracts, nobody can run anywhere – in either direction.” [Heavy Medal]
- THN’s Puck Panel talks about the round-robin portion of the Olympic tourney. [The Hockey News]
- The Caps get back to practice tomorrow (well, some of them, at least). [CI]
- Remembering the Caps’ Olympians from Nagano. [Capitals]
- Cam Janssen hops on the Twitter ahead of judgment day. (Place your suspension bets in the comments.) [Japers’ Rink]
- The latest rumors have the Caps looking at Raffi Torres and Barret Jackman (after having missed out on Matt Cullen) as deadline acquisitions. No thanks, yes please, and oh well, respectively. [TFP]
- Corey goes ahead and says it: “As a right-handed shot with vast offensive potential and a rapidly developing defensive acumen, [John Carlson] is probably a more valuable commodity than his partner, Karl Alzner, at this point.” [Corey Masisak]
- Using a 50-game cutoff for skaters and 25-game limit for goalies to be considered “prospects,” Corey lists his top five Caps prospects as follows: Carlson, Marcus Johansson, Dmitri Orlov, Braden Holtby, Cody Eakin/Oskar Osala. Agree or disagree? [@cmasisak22]
- Patrick McNeill doesn’t make that list, but he’s coming along rather nicely (and with very little fanfare). [LDN]
- An update on a few of the Caps’ top non-Bear prospects. [FanPost]
- Bruce Boudreau will be signing copies of his book at the Bears game on Saturday night, raising an obvious question: given how uber-popular the coach is, will fans wait in line longer to get Gabby to sign the book than it takes to read it? [Bears]
- Peerless has questions and, more importantly, answers. [Peerless]
- If AO was indeed superhuman, would he paint his toenails? [Capitals Outsider]
- New Year’s Day in Pittsburgh? No thanks. [Post-Gazette]
- Notes on Chris Bourque and Francois Bouchard in my buddy Dobber’s Ramblings from yesterday. [Dobber Hockey]
- For our friends in Charm City, Mike Knuble will be at the ESPN Zone in Baltimore on Monday, March 1 from 7:00 – 8:00 for a Q&A.
- The latest in Chris meet Alex‘s “Rejected Hockey Cards” series may not be the most family-friendly of the bunch, but what it lacks in subtlety it makes up for in funny. [FanPost]
- Bear Tracks! [LDN]
- Finally, happy 44th birthday to the great (for a couple of weeks, at least) John Druce and happy 55th to Peter Scamurra.