Photo: Patrick Smith

Coming off just their second loss of the season, the Capitals, who are good, looked ripe to get back on track against the Columbus Blue Jackets, who are very bad. And it kinda worked!

The first period got started with Verizon Center about half full, which is fine, because nothing happened.

Things started to open up in the second. The Capitals cut through the Columbus defense twice, but TJ Oshie and Dmitry Orlov missed layups to keep the game scoreless. Justin Williams finally beat Sergei Bobrovsky as Nick Backstrom did his best Marcus Johansson to screen the Russian netminder.

In the third, the Capitals decided to show that have better hockey players than the Blue Jackets. Alex Ovechkin came down the left circle, went cross ice to Backstrom, who then put the puck on a tee for TJ Oshie. Good players playin’ good. Jackets added a goal, but they cheated, so screw that. Caps top Blue Jackets, 2-1!

• John Tortorella didn’t assault anyone tonight.
• Tom Wilson was picked 16th overall in 2012. He was supposed to be a scoring power forward. Instead, he’s been a fourth line enforcer, which is pretty useless. Now that Wilson is in his third full NHL season, Capitals head coach Barry Trotz wants him to play a bigger role, but so far he’s languished on a terrible third line, which is really just a fourth line that Trotz calls the third line to make Jay Beagle feel better. Tonight, Wilson committed two unnecessary penalties, looking like a guy who was trying to do something for the sake of doing something. Wilson isn’t the type of player who can succeed on his own. He needs good linemates and he’s rarely gotten them.
• Wilson did, however, almostttttttttt score.
• But he didn’t.
• Speaking of not really getting a chance, Michael Latta was reinserted into the lineup as the fourth line right wing. He played under five minutes. I guess Trotz really was bored.
• Nate Schmidt, meanwhile, showed why he should be in the lineup instead of Thaddeus (?) J. Chorney. Schmidt was rock solid even with the limited ice time the third pairing got. Ol’ 88 had better possession numbers than any Capitals player save for Nicklas Backstrom.
• The Capitals power play partied like it was 2013 tonight, except for the scoring thing. The Blue Jackets kept leaving Alex Ovechkin wide open, with most of Ovi’s 12 shot attempts coming on the power play.
• I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but speaking of Ovi’s shot attempts, he had fired about one third of Washington’s total as team.
• Except for that time he passed to Backstrom, who fed TJ Oshie in the slot. THAT WAS GORGE! Oshie finished with a game-high six shots on net.
• Peter is drunk right now.
• Also this.

Time on ice: Beagle-16:13, Chimera-15:03, Wilson-14:07, Burakovsky-7:09. #nope. all of the #nope.

— Pat Holden (@pfholden) October 31, 2015

The Capitals played well against a good Penguins team on Wednesday, but ran into a brilliant goaltending performance. Not a bad way to lose. Tonight, the Capitals were outplayed for large portions of a game against a terrible team. Not a great way to win. But it’s a win, and the Capitals have a sublime record. On to the next one, which is in about 21 hours.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Blue Jackets