Your savory breakfast links:
- Recaps and other assorted musings on last night’s win from us, Vogs (plus game notes), Monumental video (Trotz, Ovechkin, Ward, Niskanen, Peters, Canes’ room, 40th Anniversary Tribute – Mark Tinordi), NHL.com, AP, WaPo (gamer, blog), CSNW (gamer, hilites), Frankovic, DSP, RMNB, and from Carolina’s end of the ice, Canes Country.
- M-V-P! [RMNB]
- Braden Holtby also had a milestone game. His 38th win this season places him second in Caps single-season victories. Olie Kolzig holds the overall title with 41. [@alex_prewitt]
- Congrats are in order for the Caps’ captain. With a sly wrister from the Ovi Spot, Alex Ovechkin scored career goal number 472 and notched his 6th career 50-goal season, and climbed a few more rungs on the Ladder of Legendary. [Rink, NHL.com, CSNW (video), Puck Daddy, RMNB (and again), Caps Outsider, SI]
- He now stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the great Peter Bondra on the Caps’ all-time goal-scoring leaderboard… [Rink]
- … joining some rather elite company in the NHL’s pantheon. [Rink, Stars and Sticks, rbtlsports]
- From Elias: Alex Ovechkin reached the 50-goal mark for the sixth time in his ten seasons in the NHL when he scored the second goal for the Capitals in their game against the Hurricanes. Ovechkin has registered six of the 19 seasons of 50 or more goals by NHL players since he entered the league (and five of 12 since 2007-08). The only other NHL players with more than one 50-goal season since 2005-06 are Dany Heatley (2), Ilya Kovalchuk (2) and Steven Stamkos (2).
- Appreciate the Gr8. His teammates certainly do… [WaPo]
- … as does his coach: “He is not scared of any player in the league. He is not scared of having to play against top players. He is not scared of criticism. He is not scared of accountability. He is not scared of coaching. He is a stand-up guy. He shoulders more of everything than is imaginable. And he does a lot in the community.” [USA Today]
- So the Curtis Glencross trade is… actually working out rather well. [The Trentonian]
- There are four Caps named in this article about the best hockey flows of all time. One is a gimme – Al Iafrate rates high on the hair-o-meter. Can you name the other three? (Sadly, Tom Wilson‘s magnificent head of lettuce is still too fresh to make the list.) [theScore]
- The Caps announced they have signed their 2011 6th rounder from Minnesota, forward Travis Boyd, to a two-year ELC. He will report to Hershey on an ATO but is not expected to play. [Patriot-News, Star-Tribune, RMNB]
- Finally, happy 34th birthday to Nolan Yonkman and happy 51st to Scott Stevens.