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.

Thank you, Joe. Welcome in, everybody, to another edition of the NBC Sports Washington Capitals Face Off podcast. I'm, of course, your host, the Capitals correspondent, Jay J.J. Regan.

With me today, he's the Capitol's insider. He is the Mr. Smee. It's my Captain Hook. He is Tark al-Bashir, Tark. They're getting more and more obscure. How is that one obscure? Everybody knows who Mr. Smee is. I do not. Corey? You're the worst at these pop culture references. Corey, do you know who Mr. Sme is? Absolutely. It, the guy with the, like the right-hand man, you know. For Dustin Hoff, you never saw a hook with Dustin Hoffman? The guy who actually made everything work? The guy behind the scenes, it kind of like, you know, was the fixer? Yeah, that's me. As you have heard, we have a special guest today. Corey Massasek from the Athletic.

Corey, thanks for hopping on with us.

Thank you for having me.

We are here after game two to talk about the Capitalist Penguins series, a series which is tied

one to one.

So everybody's burning of the town and rioting after game one after the Penguins' comeback win was a bit premature,

so it seems.

Tarek, how were the capitals able to rebound from what looked like the quintessential Penguins'

Capitals game one?

Well, two things stood out to me.

Number one, Braden Holpey looked like the goaltender that won the Vezentotopia a couple years ago. Two saves in particular, one on Gensel and one on Crosby, both pad saves, really kept the game within reach for the capitals to go ahead and win. And number two, the Capitals, even though they went back on their heels a little bit, a little bit after taking that 3-00 lead, I felt like they quickly regrouped and didn't kind of fall into that trap that

is so often come back to bite them, which is, you know, trying to protect the lead and

sitting back, and then all of a sudden, uh, what happened? So I would say goaltending, you know,

as I've said a number of times on this podcast, sometimes, especially this time of year, hockey should be called goalie because it is the most important position on the ice and it's not even close. And, you know, the cap's kept pressing forward after getting knocked on their heels a little bit late in the second period. Corey, is someone who has not been beaten down and broken by the history that is the Washington...

What are you talking about?

He covered the team for the Washington Times.

How many years was that?

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