Your savory breakfast links:
- Day One of the rookie tournament in Estero, Florida is in the books, with the Capitals falling to the Panthers 2-1 in the skillz competition:
- Caps gamer. [Dump-n-Chase, NoVa Caps Fans]
- Cats giftastic gamer, and appreciation for Vitek Vanecek and Jakub Vrana. [Litterbox Cats]
- The view from Hershey, and the potential line-combo preview. [Patriot-News]
- Postgame reaction. [Monumental video (Troy Mann, players)]
- Photos. [Monumental]
- “Now it’s just a matter of more evaluation on an individual personnel perspective than it is the overall team game,” Mann said. “Ultimately we want to win the tournament, get more points than the other teams, but we’re not going to be crying here come Tuesday if we don’t win.” [WaPo]
- The Caps’ next opponent is the rookie Bolts, who waxed the rookie Preds yesterday 5-1 behind the strong play in net of Kristers Gudlevskis. Puck drop is 7:00pm.
- Looking ahead to main camp, Brooks Orpik looks to see some preseason game action, but Nicklas Backstrom is nearly certain to sit this preseason out. Michael Latta, Brooks Laich and Andre Burakovsky have instructions to study their centerman and wing playbooks. [WaPo, Today’s Slapshot]
- Which prospects have a shot at cracking to Caps’ roster? [THW]
- Crystal ballin’ Marcus Johansson‘s 2015-16. [Peerless]
- Finally, happy 39th birthday to Jose Theodore.