Your savory breakfast links:
- The team returned to Kettler to shake off the rust and get the legs going again:
- In general. [Monumental video (Trotz, Alzner, Niskanen), NoVa Caps Fans]
- John Carlson completed the practice in full with the team, but he may yet sit out Wednesday’s game in favor of a full week’s healing. [WaPo]
- So how did everyone deal with the snow? The same way we all did – a bit of shoveling, a lot of chilling at home:
- Karl Alzner met a bunch of his neighbors, most of whom wanted him to stop shoveling lest he injure himself and endanger his roster spot for his record-setting game. [Fox Sports]
- Mike Richards is still new in town, so he and his dad hung out at the hotel and played some cards. [Rinkside Update]
- Mostly, they all tried to not think too much about the games they weren’t playing, knowing that the schedule is pretty brutal on the other side of the All-Star break. [WaPo, WashTimes]
- This particular weekend was popular with the Caps’ international fans. We’ve already met the Swedes who got snowed out, but there were also some disappointed fans from Brazil, and a lucky dude from Germany who ran into Brooks Laich in front of the White House and got the VIP tour of Kettler.
- The Week That Was, Volume 15. [Peerless, NVC (and again), All About The Jersey (with the Metro lowdown)]
- Speaking of the Metro, the Caps are (for the moment) quite comfortably on top of the standings, which leaves teams two through six or even seven in a mad and entertaining scramble for points and position. We’re guessing this displeases Alain Vigneault. [NYT]
- “…a second viable complementary scoring line has made [the Caps] nearly impossible to game plan for.” That secondary scoring line is helmed by Evgeny Kuznetsov and oh my, he is good. [RMNB]
- Watch out world, you’re about to meet Nicklas Backstrom, All-Star. The National Hockey League may never be the same. [NHL.com]
- There are two kinds of players in the NHL – those worthies who have been awarded the coveted Scott Oake intermission interview plus Hockey Night in Canada towel, and those who have not. [SI.com]
- Tom Wilson got his HNIC towel last November in his hometown of Toronto, and sadly the best quote of the piece was left in the remainders bin. TW43 had been working for that moment his whole life:
This quote didn’t fit entirely into the HNIC story, but Tom Wilson went all poetic about a towel. pic.twitter.com/drUDhNRYP7
— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) January 25, 2016
- Tom Wilson got his HNIC towel last November in his hometown of Toronto, and sadly the best quote of the piece was left in the remainders bin. TW43 had been working for that moment his whole life:
- Why is the Senators‘ Jared Cowen considered one of this year’s prime trade deadline targets? Because
he’s really good at hockeyhe’s a perfectly serviceable depth defensemanthe team that buys out his contract in the summer will experience sweet, sweet salary cap relief. [VAVEL.com] - Finally, happy 58th birthday to Mark Taylor.
- One more:
It’s coming together. (Or at least Alex Ovechkin is.) pic.twitter.com/hRjV19EH7p
— Adam Vingan (@AdamVingan) January 25, 2016