I really want to say it's here.

It's sort of here.

It's not quite playoff time yet, but we're in the ballpark now as Braden Holby and the caps on the ice for practice this morning at MedStar Capital Capitol's Iceplex, in preparation of Thursday night's

playoff opener against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Hi, everyone.

Welcome to our Caps Talk playoff preview special here in our NBC Sports Washington, Facebook

live page as well as streaming on the My Teams app.

I'm Rob Carlin alongside Joe B.

I feel like I should say Joe Ben and Anani when introducing you, but Joe B seems right.

It's all well and good. I think Locker dubbed me that a long time ago, and it's stayed with me like mold.

Sorry, I love it. I love it. It seems to have worked for you over the years. So we asked the Caps for some guests today for our special.

I think you may have heard of the four guests we're scheduled to get today. Alex Ovechkin? Check. Nicholas Baxter. Not a bad player. Todd Reardon. Good coach. Brian McClellan. Oh, he's done a nice job too. Yes, so those are the four people. with rings on their fingers.

They all do, and they will be talking about their pursuit of another ring on their fingers.

As they start the playoff push against them. What we now know is the Carolina Hurricanes, who you can look at it two ways. Either they swept them. They're better than them. They should have all the confidence in the world, or Carolinas do. Carolina's come on like gangbusters in the last quarter of the season, obviously to earn

themselves a playoff berth for the first time in a long time for that squad.

And I just have great admiration for what Rod Brindamore did as a player.

And now what he's doing as a head coach to lift Raleigh the way he has. Their spirits have soared in that community.

They've banded together, and they are a really good little

hockey team.

And that's not to say anything disparaging about them.

I love the way they play defensively.

I think offensively, there are a number of players

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