Your savory breakfast links:
- Missed Saturday’s Clips? Feeling left out of water cooler chatter? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
- Lockout news and notes:
- After two weeks of silence, the big news over the weekend was a meeting between Bill Daly and Steve Fehr that went late into Saturday night, covered “a lot of ground” and set up additional talks soon. Reason for optimism… or another football to kick? [Star Tribune, Globe and Mail, WaPo, Wash Times (and again), SLAM!, RDS].
- Now that talks have resumed, it’s not Saturday’s meeting but the next one that could prove to be the most critical for both sides. [CBC (Friedman)].
- Does that Gary Bettman guy really care about the NHL? [Daily Herald].
- Any signs of movement by the NHL should be taken with a huge chunk of salt – apparently they have a tendency to try and play the PR game, which is news to me. [NY Post].
- Unsurprisingly, the NHL’s cancellation of the Winter Classic continues a pattern of really horrible timing. [Peerless].
- The NHLPA issued a curt statement to the press after that cancellation on Friday; Gould Old Days suggests a different version. Our opinion? Neither has enough cursing. [Fanpost].
- Down (up?) on the farm, Hershey followed up a shootout win over the East’s best and ended a three-game winning streak with a feisty, penalty-filled 3-2 loss to Bridgeport. [Hershey Bears, Patriot-News, Lebanon Daily News, Caps].
- A bright spot in the loss was Braden Holtby’s 39-save performance in his second of back-to-back appearances. [SHOE].
- And did we mention the game was feisty? Because… it was feisty. [HockeyFights (Oleksy vs Cizikas, Stoa vs Gallant, Mitchell vs McDonald, Clackson vs Riley), Gamesheet].
- Meanwhile down in the ECHL, the Royals picked up their first back-to-back wins of the season. [Caps Outsider].
- While over in Sweden, Marcus Johansson experienced a first of his own as he picked up his first goal – and point – for BIK Karlskoga. Huzzah. [Hockeysverige, RMNB]
- Checking in on the organization’s prospects as November gets underway. [DC Pro Sports Report].
- Cody Grimm., safety for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (and Fairfax, VA native), has a new friend – a black lab named Ovie. As if we needed an easier set up for the “Ovechkin is a dog” jokes… [Orlando Sentinel].
- Finally, happy 41st birthday to Sergei Berezin, and happy 49th to Brian Curran.