If 65 minutes of NHL hockey could be summed up in a single photography, this would be it. Washington Capitals forward Matt Hendricks (#26) falls after being tangled up with Toronto Maple Leafs forward Clark MacArthur.

The Washington Capitals game against the Toronto Maple Leafs was eerily similar to the last time these two teams met at Verizon Center. Once again, the Capitals got out to a big lead in the first two periods and then took their skates off the Leafs’ collective neck in the third period. The most meaningful difference was that they Capitals couldn’t get the extra point back, losing in the shootout.

There were bright spots, though.  Mathieu Perrault scored two goals in the first game of his second recall from Hershey this year.  The first two periods were very good hockey for the Capitals and they seemed to have learned their lesson from Saturday’s loss to the Thrashers.  They crashed the net and got second chances on shots from the outside. See Perrault’s first goal: Perrault, Alexander Semin and Brooks Laich were on Maple Leafs goalie Jonas Gustavsson’s doorstop, between him and the Leaf defenders and Perrault scored on a tip in from a shot by Tom Poti at the point.  Yeah, that’s how that works.  Mike Knuble scored on his own rebound later in the first period.  It was beautiful.

Then came the third period and I had that Damone from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” feeling: “I woke up in a great mood; I don’t know what the hell happened…”  Anyone else hoping to get some kind of different insight than the expected post game interviews when HBO’s 24/7 premieres next week?

I seem to have written a bunch of words up there.  Whoops.  Check out the regular blogs like Japer’s Rink and Russian Machine Never Breaks for words that go together better.  In fact, I think On Frozen Blog’s lede says it best: “Still a Work in Progress: Skating With Killer Instinct.” Look at my photos here and on flickr.