Why do the Blues have this many days off this early in the season?

Blues news

• Get to know the Blues in this fancy multimedia page. [STLtoday.com]
• Happy Meal Andy McDonald is improving and Carlo Colaiacovo is back. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Hockey news

• Your winners last night? Atlanta, Detroit, Vancouver, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh. [Yahoo! Sports]
• Six games tonight. My game of the night? The surprising Avs vs. the surprising Coyotes. [Yahoo! Sports]
• Phil Kessel is back and he shows just how bad the Leafs are. [Down Goes Brown]
• David Backes, T.J. Oshie and Eric Johnson will find out that they will be donning the red, white and blue during the Olympics during the Winter Classic. [ESPN]
• It's final: The NHL owns the Coyotes. [ESPN]
• Steve Yzerman is still deciding on what players will make the Olympic roster. [TSN]
• Privileged people getting special treatment? I've never heard of such a thing. [TSN]
• Like I said yesterday, the NHL is a group of walking wounded. [TSN]
• Ottawa would like some money back from Dany Heatley. [ESPN]
• A look at backup goalies. [Orland Kurtenblog]
• An insightful look at gay slurs in the NHL. Warning: the comments are devolve into a discussion of if gay is a choice or not. [Puck Daddy]

Other links

• From Gene, a guy struggles with what to say to his fiance when he wakes up in the middle of the night. It's pretty funny. [Skippy’s List]
• From Chris Gift: Athletes who are very, very good at reproducing. [FanIQ]
• Mmmmm waffles ...[Recipezaar]

Video

I found this video last night in the ole e-mail. Donut King presents Muse, Knights of Cydonia. He can explain: Awesome video.  Yes, it's a bit long.  Yes, Muse is an acquired taste.  But seriously, if I ever had a hockey team of my own, I'd take the first two or so minutes of this song and use it as an intro.  It gets me all sorts of jacked up for reasons unknown."

That'll do for today. gametimelinks(at)gmail.com