The Washington Capitals took on the road-weary Los Angeles Kings for a Sunday afternoon date, except it's December 22 so it was pitch black outside before the puck even dropped. It was a good game, and the deciding factor was some blue-line beef-ups.

A broken Kings stick along the blue line gave Aliaksei Protas the opportunity for his first goal, the lone goal of the first period. In the second, a series of Caps mistakes gave Kevin Fiala a power-play goal. But Jakub Vrana got on the board after the Kings failed to clear due to a obstructing linesman.

The third period was tight but Washington held on until Protas scored his second of the night - this time against an empty net.

A tight but competent game by both teams. I feel like these guys could go at each other all 82 times in a season and split it 41-41. The winner is just whoever gets the bounce - off an official's butt for example.

This is my last recap before Christmas, so I've gotta do this to you. Here comes the authoritative, not-up-for-debate Christmas song ranking.

It goes:

In lieu of gifts I will be accepting your unreserved agreement in the comments.

The Caps will wrap up their pre-Christmas schedule with a roadie in Boston tomorrow night. I'll be with family. So until next time, I hope we can all face unafraid the plans that we made.