Your savory breakfast links:
- Defensive urgency and a Moment That Mattered. Lather, rinse, repeat. Sigh. [Rink]
- The Week That Was, Volume Four. [Peerless, RMNB, ILWT (Metro overview)]
- Recaps and other assorted musings on last night’s loss to the Coyotes from us (recap, QuickCap), Vogs, Monumental video (Trotz, Orpik, Wilson, Green, Brouwer), Caps Today, NHL.com, AP, WaPo (gamer, blog) CSNW, Peerless, DSP (plus three stars), RMNB, BrooksLaichyear (with the #fancystats), Talk the Red, and Five For Howling.
- “Behavior has to change,” Trotz said. “Or we have to change people, plain and simple.” Gird your loins, Caps commentariat. [CBC, CSNW, PHT]
- Congrats are in order for Caps captain Alex Ovechkin, whose assist on Troy Brouwer‘s goal was his 825th NHL point, tying Peter Bondra‘s Caps franchise record… [@washcaps, Monumental (video), Caps Outsider]
- … even as Nicklas Backstrom‘s three-assist night brought him to 376 Capitals apples and moved him to fourth place on the Caps’ career assist leaderboard, one helper better than Dale Hunter.
- His assist on John Carlson‘s goal was #375 and tied Hunter’s record.
- #376 was achieved, fittingly, on the power play. Backstrom dished the puck to Mike Green who sent it to on to the left circle where Ovechkin fired a no-doubt-about-it laser into the Yotes’ net. A three-Young Gun salute, as it were.
- He chose a good night to do some record-setting, as he was honored pregame as one of the Caps’ 40 all-time greatest players. [Monumental (video)]
- Whatever Tom Wilson was doing here, he was sure having a fine old time doing it. [RMNB]
- “Behavior has to change,” Trotz said. “Or we have to change people, plain and simple.” Gird your loins, Caps commentariat. [CBC, CSNW, PHT]
- News and notes from pregame:
- In general. [Monumental video (Two-Man Advantage, Rinkside Update/Carlson, Trotz)]
- Braden Holtby accepted the blame for the loss to the Bolts. [WaPo]
- The Hershey Bears completed their weekend suite of road games with a 3-1 loss to the Manchester Monarchs. [Patriot-News]
- Increasingly rank rankings. [SunMedia]
- Finally, happy 45th birthday to Jim McKenzie.