Tuesday Caps Clips: Full Lineups are Overrated

Your savory breakfast links:

• Ilya Samsonov has been better over the last two months, but the one thing missing from him is that one Big Save. [Rink]
• The East Division doesn’t just have a lot of very good teams - it also has some of the League’s best bench bosses. [Rink]
• Sneaking a peek at the week ahead for the Caps, which includes the final road trip of the season and a visit from the Flyers. [Rink]
• Recaps and other assorted musings on last night’s win from us, Vogs, Caps video (Laviolette, Carlson, Hathaway, recap), NHL, AP, WaPo, NBCSW, Peerless, NoVa Caps, RMNB, and BSB.
• It wasn’t always pretty, but last night’s win was one to rally around - and just another showing from a team that has thrived on adversity this season. [NBCSW]
• This time the adversity came in the form of a shortened bench, beginning with news that T.J. Oshie would sit out for personal reasons. [NBCSW]
• Then, Coach Laviolette announced that Evgeny Kuznetsov and Ilya Samsonov would be held out as punishment for being late to a team event. Awesome. [NBCSW]
• It did seem like the lineup would get a boost from the returns of Alex Ovechkin and John Carlson, but Ovechkin skated exactly one shift before this happened [NBCSW]:

• Oh, and then the team was down another forward for a bit because of an event that totally didn’t cause people to lose their minds and write crazy things. [No links available]
• Both Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek still have a lot to prove. [S&S]
• This last handful of games will be a warmup and a time to iron out any kinks for the playoffs. [THW, NoVa Caps]