The Washington Capitals beat the St. Louis Blues last night by a score of 3-2 and won a second consecutive home game for the first time since…since what seems like a long, long time ago.  The game winning goal was scored by Jason Arnott to give him two points in two games as a Capital.  The best news of the night was how the power play was working. They didn’t score and the Capitals only had a single power play on the night, but it looked a lot better than it has a terribly long time.  In many ways, the Capitals look like a team that has turned a corner. In this second game after the trade deadline, the new players (Arnott, Dennis Wideman, and Marco Sturm) appear to be inserting themselves into the team makeup in good, good ways. The chemistry is visibly different.  Players are talking to each other more during stops in play.  They’re patting each other on the backs when they do good things. They’re smiling. It looks good.

Read more about the game at Japer’s Rink and Russian Machine, check out the Capitals Outsider box score, and see more photos at On Frozen Blog (yeah, weird, ain’t it?) and from BridgetDS on flickr. See my photos below or on flickr. Thanks!