Friday Caps Clips: Sensational Sammy

Your savory breakfast links:

• Recaps and other bits and bobs from last night’s 1-0 win over the Islanders from us, Vogs, Peerless, WaPo ($), Capitals video (Coach Laviolette, Michael Raffl/John Carlson, recap, condensed game) NHL, AP, Reuters, NBCSW (and again), NoVa Caps, RMNB, and Lighthouse Hockey.
• The Hershey Bears and Washington Capitals announced yesterday that Bears’ head coach Spencer Carbery, assistant coach Patrick Wellar, and associate goaltending coach Alex Westlund have all signed multi-year contract extensions. [Caps]
• The Capitals’ final ten games of the season are potentially their most important ones yet. [NBCSW]
• The NHL’s latest Super 16 power rankings have the Caps dropping two spots this week. [NHL]
• Justin Schultz did not travel with the team to Long Island, meaning the defenseman will miss at least one more game. [NBCSW]
• Alex Ovechkin needs a new contract, but waiting to resign him until after the Seattle expansion draft might be the right move. [NoVa Caps]
• Caps’ prospect Connor McMichael spoke to Tarik El-Bashir this week about adjusting to pro-hockey life in Hershey. [Athletic ($)]
• The Caps need to focus on the playoffs, not a division title. [THW]
• In former Cap news, newly minted Detroit Red Wing Jakub Vrana recorded his second career hat trick last night in a four (!) goal outing against Dallas. Fun fact: Jake the Snake is the first Red Wing to score four goals in a game since some guy named Anthony Mantha did it on October 6, 2019. Congrats, Vrana! [Winging It In Motown]
• The MassMutual East might be pretty locked up in terms of which teams are playoff-bound, but that is not the case in the other three divisions. [FiveThirtyEight]
• Rumors and rumblings from around the league including potential ESPN broadcast crews and virtual reality hockey practices. [Athletic ($)]
• The 2021 RFA class is stacked, folks. [Sportsnet]
• Happy 63rd birthday to Ryan Walter!

Finally, welcome to DC, Michael Raffl!