This is Joe Beninati. You're listening to NBC Sports Washington's Capitol's face-off podcast.

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

Thank you, Joe.

Welcome in to another edition of NBC Sports Washington's Capitals Faceoff podcast.

I am, of course, your host, the Capitol's correspondent, JJ Regan.

With me today, he's the Capitals Insider.

He's the Archimedes to my Merlin.

He's Tariq Elb my Merlin. He's Tarak Elbashir. Tarq. Now we're making jokes about wizards. You always complain about how obscure these are. I knew when I saw this one that you would have no idea. Sword and the Stone reference. The old Disney movie.

Merlin had a pet owl called Archimedes.

Anyway.

What we will talk about today, we are going to wrap up the All-Star game.

We're going to talk about Afghani Kuznetsov avoiding injury, and we're going to play a little

game of fact or fiction. But first, Tark, you are at the all-star festivities how was that experience

I don't remember much of it there's also a pirate festival going on at the same time

all seriousness it was a great time the all-star game is always a lot of fun because there's no

pressure you know I mean the guys want a win for pride and for the million dollars, but for the

most part, everyone's down there just hobnobbing and drinking and eating sushi and having a good

time.

And, you know, they're typically in warm weather locales.

And not always, but, you know, it was L.A. the previous year.

So, you know, guys are relaxed and

they're with their families. So it's a good time. And, you know, it was actually a crazier

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