This is Joe Beninati.

You're listening to NBC Sports Washington's Capitals Face Off podcast.

Here he is.

Here's your host, J.J. Regan.

Welcome in to another edition of NBC Sports Washington's Capitals Faceop podcast. I'm your host,

the capitalist correspondent, J.J. Regan. With me today, he's the Capitol's insider.

He is the Phantom Menace to My Empire Strikes Back. He is Tark Helbeshir. Tark?

Empire Strikes Back was a better flick. Yes. That's why you are the Phantom Menace to my Empire Strikes Back. Yes. These never go in your favor, Tark. I don't know if you've noticed this. They don't, and they're lame. But Empire Strikes Back was definitely the better movie. Yes, of course it was. What we were going to talk about today, we're going to talk about a little bit about the oil or snatching Nathan Walker. We're going to talk about Joe Thornton's hit to T.J. Oshy. But mostly, we're going to open up the mailbag because you find people follow through this week, and we got some good questions to talk about.

So let's dive right into it. First, let's update the injury status of what's going on here with the capitals.

Travis Boyd is headed back to Hershey. Tyler Graevac was placed on waivers and all of that is good news for the status of Andre Berkowski.

These are moves that needed to be made in order

to clear up roster and cap space to bring Berkowski back. Tark, what does Berkowski add to the

Capitol's line? Well, it extends the lineup a little bit. It puts a bona fide sniper. Sure,

he hasn't quite lived up to his billing and his potential yet, but it adds a

really dangerous player to the third line. Today in practice, he was out there skating with

Lars Eller and Brett Connolly. Remember that trio had some really good chemistry in the second

half of last season. So what it does is it means that the top six really becomes a top

nine, which is what you need in today's game to really become a contender. And, you know,

the fact that the top six is playing so well, yeah, T.J. O.G's out right now. But when he's, when he's in there, that top six has been as good as any in the league, I would argue. The fact that you have a situation, given how much this team lost in the offseason, where a guy like Andre Borkovsky comes back onto the third line when he returns from a 20-game absence. I think it extends that lineup. It makes the lineup more dangerous.

There's more, there are now three lines that should be capable of consistently putting up points.

Now the fact that Gravac and Boyd are on their way out means that the capital's extra for the next game will be T.J. Aoshi. So that has to be good news. Not ideal. Not ideal, but that has to be good news about his status, right? Well, maybe. I did catch a glimpse of him. He wasn't out there for practice today.

I did catch a glimpse of him doing a little stick handling in slippers off to the side, right outside the Capitol's dressing room.

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