For the first time in 10 years, PNC Arena is hosting an NHL playoff game.

And if it's the playoffs, that means the hot lap is back.

Alex Ovechkin set in the tone for the caps on the ice at morning skate with the hot lap

that they rode all the way to a Stanley Cup title last year.

And that means the road back is officially underway with their first road game as we've taken our show on the road.

Hi everyone. Welcome to Caps game day live presented by your Washington, D.C. area. GMC dealers.

We are live at PNC Arena in Raleigh.

It's on our Facebook live page as well as streaming on the My Teams app. I'm Rob Carlin with Alan May and John Walton as well. Joe B. got a lot more handsome, didn't he? He did. Wow. And two feet taller. All right, Alan, then I will put you in this position of starting off with our one big

thought today before game three.

Well, we see this arena hasn't been decorated for playoffs in forever.

I think it's been 10 seasons.

And you're going to have to weather the storm.

Their fans have been craving this for a long time.

They've watched a lot of tough hockey teams in the sense

that are bad. Get through the first 10 minutes, weather the storm, and then control the emotions

of the arena the rest of the game. Get through that, and the caps will do that by getting back to

what their defensive roots are in the playoffs, and that's just playing great defensive sound hockey,

managing the puck at all times, weather the storm, play defense. I think if you look at where this team is, to your point, Alan, in the first 10 minutes, yeah, you want a couple of close games at Capital One Arena. But as you come into this building tonight, the first 10 minutes is going to dictate maybe everything in this series. Just because if Carolina can ride that wave, their first periods haven't been very good. They've given up five goals. They've only scored one in the first period. They might be the better team in that second and third period in the games that were played in Washington. So withstanding that and making sure they don't have a good first period tonight is going to be important. My big thing, Rob, would be this coming into play tonight. Brooks Orpick in the same weekend that Tiger Woods did Tiger Woods things at the Masters.

At 38 years of age, Brooks Warpick has done nothing but turned back the clock in this series to this point.

And yes, the overtime game winner is what we will all remember for a long time to come.

But to me, it's more than that. And a defensive core that has been shaky and a little bit, maybe even some loss of identity because of the loss of Michael Kempney and figuring out their way. Is it going to be Nick Jensen? Is it going to be Christian Jews? Might there be a Jonas Seganthal or siding at some point? There's a little bit of instability back there, but Father Time has not yet defeated number 44. If this is his last run, what a way to go out. And it's

not just the offense that Brooks Orpick has given this team. And yeah, I just said that. I just went

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