Thursday Caps Clips: Caps Beat Preds in Holiday Hiatus Return

Your savory breakfast links:

• Recaps and other musings from last night’s win over the Nashville Predators from us, Vogs, Peerless, WaPo ($), AP, NHL, Caps video (recap, condensed game, Coach Laviolette, Alexeyev/Hathaway, Kuznetsov/Carlson), WHN, NoVa Caps, RMNB, and SB Nation pals On The Forecheck.
• Washington Capitals linemates, best friends, and noted podcast stars Nic Dowd and Garnet Hathaway sat down to discuss their friendship and their time in Washington. [WHN]
• The 2021-2022 issue of W Magazine, the Caps’ lifestyle magazine, is now available for purchase. [Caps]
• The Washington Capitals are climbing the NHL’s power rankings, folks. [NHL]
• Coach Laviolette, who took sole possession of tenth place on the all-time wins list as an NHL head coach last night, is making one heck of a mark on this team this year. [NBCSW]
• The Hershey Bears beat the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in a decisive 6-1 victory last night. [NoVa Caps]
• Michael Sgarbossa cleared waivers yesterday and has been assigned to the Capitals’ taxi squad. [RMNB]
• Washington’s conditioning is not quite where Laviolette wants it to be after the nine-day break. [NBCSW]
• The NHL and NHLPA agreed to modify the league’s COVID protocol in response to the new guidelines proposed by the CDC this week. [NHL, ESPN, AP, NoVa Caps, RMNB]
• The NHL announced that Alex Ovechkin had the best-selling jersey in 2021. [NHL, NBCSW]
• In international hockey news, the IIHF announced yesterday that the remainder of the 2022 World Juniors is cancelled due to COVID concerns. [IIHF, NHL, ESPN, AP, TSN, Sportsnet, WHN, NoVa Caps]
• Some NHL players are not happy about missing the 2022 Olympics. [AP]
• In honor of New Year’s Day rapidly approaching, take a look back at all 12 NHL Winter Classics. [ESPN+ ($)]
• Finally, happy 56th birthday to Jim Thomson!