Finally, the light at the end of a very long tunnel seems to be getting brighter and brighter.

The Washington Capitals have been struggling lately, dropping 5 straight games, and going into Chicago last night was, as it is for every team, a little intimidating knowing they had to win to get back on their feet again.

Braden Holtby stopped 38-40 shots en route to a 3-2 Capitals win. After falling behind 2-0, the "cardiac Caps" scored 3 unanswered goals in the second period to take and hold the lead.

Rookie Andre Burakovsky scored a beauty of goal on a 2-1 break in which he faked a pass and roofed a shot over Crawford's left shoulder. That sparked a Capitals attack that lead to two more goals from Marcus Johansson and Joel Ward, each assisted by Matt Niskanen.

Burakovsky finished the night with a goal and an assist for the #1 Star of the Game.

Alex Ovechkin was held scoreless again, but he did receive a minor penalty for an ill-legal hit to the head on Niklas Hjalmarsson.

There is no word yet on whether or not Ovechkin will receive any supplemental discipline, especially since he made a questionable hit against Curtis Glencross in the game against Calgary. Ovechkin has been suspended before for illegal checks, but the fact that Hjalmarsson got right back up, joined the scrum that followed and played the rest of the game could be a factor in Ovechkin not hearing anything from Player Safety.

Ovechkin, I'm sure, will be watched heavily over the next couple weeks, and anything that looks fishy could find him facing discipline.

To say the Caps played a great game against a great team last night, but they necessarily do anything different. In the loss against Calgary, the Caps played extremely well, but were victims of bad karma from the Hockey Gods and maybe a few questionable calls from the officials.

The honeymoon is over now for Trotz and the Caps. The first month of "getting to know each other" has seen this team show the league that they can be dominant at times, however, it also showed how fast the cobwebs can grow back.

This is hopefully the first positive step in a good month for the Caps, and should be a good indicator that the Winter Classic will be epic.

The Chicago Blackhawks, like the Capitals, haven't been playing well of late, dropping their last three games, and last nights game was supposed to help build a forced feud between the two teams.

I'd say it worked, too. The Blackhawks will no doubt be hungry for retribution against the Caps come New Years Day, and you have to think that Hjalmarsson will be looking for a little payback.

The Capitals go up against a very surprising Carolina team tonight at home in Verizon, and it should be a good game for former Southeast rivals.

More to come...

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