Joe Beninati has been the voice of the caps for a long time now.

He's one of the best voices of any local sports team anywhere, one of my all-time favorites,

and he joins us here as we all get ready for the holidays.

And I was doing the math on this before the show.

But essentially when a lot of people come back from the next week and a half, two weeks,

the NHL season will be half over. The Caps have played 36, five more to 41, and their fifth

in that 36 to 41 is on New Year's Day. So we're close enough. What are they? What are the Caps

in 2025, 2026?

Kevin, I think they're really competitive. I see them at some nights, you know, pushing to be,

as they were a season ago, a Metro Division regular season champ and a team that was going

away, running away with the East. At other times,

I see some deficiencies, especially at the offensive end, which bring everybody into the mix.

So as of right now, where they are tied for a second, I want to say in the division with

Philadelphia, and hats off to Rick Tocke with what he's done there.

You asked at the beginning of the season where they would fall,

I thought they would be in that top three in the division mixed with the likes of Carolina and Jersey.

Carolina is where I expected them to be.

Jersey is coming back into form as they get healthier.

And as the caps get healthier, I expect Washington, Jersey, and Carolina to fight it out in the metro.

I really do.

So I was, Max and I were talking before the show, and Max is a big hockey game, hockey guy.

And he said, the Caps guy, he spencer carberry uh publicly kind of pitched for because

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