This Saturday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins will be in town, so Craig Laughlin will do what he has done more than a thousand times over the past three decades: take the corner elevator from the ground floor with the hockey rink up to level six at Capital One Arena. He will sidle up next to Joe Beninati in the Monumental Sports Network broadcast booth. He will look into the camera, and they will record their introduction for yet another Washington Capitals hockey broadcast.

“And if it’s not good enough,” Laughlin said, “we’ll do it again.”

Drink this in and cherish it, Capitals fans. Beninati and Laughlin — oh, who are we kidding? “Joe B.” and “Locker,” as they’re known to all — are more constant for the Caps than even Alex Ovechkin’s goal scoring. With Ovi less than two dozen shy of Wayne Gretzky’s career record, that sounds like an exaggeration. Given Beninati and Laughlin have been paired together since 1996, it’s absolutely not.

So here’s the hiccup: Saturday’s game against the Penguins will be Laughlin’s last for a bit. The short version: He has some heart issues, and he needs surgery. The long version involves a scan at the urging of a friend, a flight home — and an unexpected call.

“I spoke to him,” said Alan May, a Capital in Laughlin’s early days on the broadcast, a longtime pre- and postgame analyst now. “He was quiet. And then as we went over it, there was some shock. And I said: ‘Hey, I love you. And you’re fine. We just got to figure out what it is and how to take care of it.’”

Back up a bit. One of May’s longtime friends from his Capitals playing days was a doctor in Maryland who moved south and eventually started Life Guard Imaging, a facility in Tampa that offers full-body, three-dimensional CAT scans that can serve as early detectors for cancer, heart issues and other medical problems.

May’s introduction to the technology led to an unexpected revelation of his own heart disease. Since, he has urged friends to go in for scans. So on the Capitals’ November trip to play Florida and Tampa Bay, a whole crew came into the Tampa facility. The next night’s game against the Lightning wasn’t on Monumental, so Laughlin flew home. At 67, an athlete all his life, he thought nothing of it.

“I’m riding the Peloton every day,” he said. “I’m lifting weights. I’m taking saunas. I’m taking cold plunges. I play tennis all the time with my daughter. I’m just feeling great. I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way they’re going to find any goddamn thing on the scan.’”

May’s call, then, was jarring. Laughlin had a high calcium score. A combination of the Life Guard Imaging scan and follow-up appointments with cardiologists revealed more issues: a condition called a bicuspid aortic valve, which is an aortic valve that has two flaps instead of three and can cause the heart to work harder; an aneurysm; and a blocked left anterior descending artery (LAD), which also is known as the “widowmaker.”

“It was like a trifecta,” Laughlin said.

Laughlin should be fine. He is scheduling surgery for late January or early February. Then time away from the rink is to rest and repair. He is hoping to rehab, then return to the booth by the end of the season.So as Laughlin steps away from the broadcast — temporarily — it’s a perfect time for an ode to the broadcast, which is just so darn good. There is no more soothing, warming feeling on a chilly winter night than flipping on a Capitals game and hearing the local crew. The hockey is, mostly, the main attraction. Joe B. and Locker make it go down easy every single night.

Game day, for now, is taking care of his heart. He and his family are raising money for the American Heart Association by selling “Locker Strong” T-shirts through the family foundation’s website. He has received so many well-wishes, his family set up a P.O. box strictly for cards. The Caps will play on. May will hold down Locker’s spot next to Joe B. And the seat will be warm whenever Laughlin is ready to return.