The Bruins gave the class of the Eastern Conference a nice punch in the mouth on Tuesday night in marching into DC and defeating the Capitals, 3-1. It was a victory achieved through solid first line play, another beauty from Tim Thomas (35 saves on 36 shots in his third straight win), and about a half an hour of Zdeno Chara.

It's easy to love everything about the Bruins proving they belong with the likes of the Capitals, but the game had its good signs and its bad ones. For example, Gregory Campbell has been as advertised -- a solid fourth-line center who does it all and isn't afraid to drop the gloves -- but six penalty minutes (excluding his first-period major for fighting) is not something you'd like to turn in, especially when you're facing a team with Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin champing at the bit to pick up some power play points. 

The first line, on the other hand, continued to show that it is one of the best in the league. Nathan Horton, David Krejci, and Milan Lucic all extended their season-long point streaks, as Krejci notched his first goal of the season and Lucic became the third player in the league to pick up a first Gordie Howe hat trick in 2010-11. 

Chara logged a game-high 29:05 of ice time, making things very difficult for Ovechkin -- who didn't get one of his five shots on Thomas until late in the second period -- and the rest of the Capitals offense. Matt Hunwick, meanwhile, continued his up and down season by misplaying a puck behind his net, which led to the Capitals' lone goal, but scoring his first goal of the season in the third period. 

Here is the hat trick of things learned in the Bruins' last game before (finally) returning to the Garden on Thursday. 

WHEN DOES IT STOP?

No, not Thomas' solid play, but this mini-streak of games started. The 36-year-old stood on his head once again on Tuesday, and since getting the nod last Sunday in the team's second game he has given the team no reason to sit him down. The most recent example was Tuesday's 35-save effort that had him flailing around and making timely saves against a very challenging offense (Mike Knuble very easily could have made it 1-0 Capitals in the first period).

The team's line of thinking has revolved around giving each guy their chances and rewarding good play. Now they face the question of what to do when one guy hasn't had his chance in over a week and a half and the other guy deserves to be rewarded for an outstanding three-game winning streak.

This scribe's guess would be that Rask has to be the guy on Thursday, just for the sake of reminding the world that he exists and preventing either guy from thinking a job has been won. It's a healthy competition, but a competition at that, and one that Rask can most certainly rise to the occasion for. 

There's also the fact that Thomas is coming off surgery and was brought along slowly in training camp. He says and has definitely played like he's 100 percent, but this early in the season, especially when your other goalie is a No. 1 guy, there's no need to test how much of a workload he can stand in the early going. 

The Bruins are in such good shape goaltending-wise -- remember, Rask looked fine in that 5-2 loss to the Coyotes -- that it may not matter how they approach it this early on. Either way, they should be more than pleased with what they've seen. 

THERE IS A POWER OUTAGE

The Bruins sure did have a ball passing the puck around while Tomas Fleischmann and John Erskine in the box in the second period, and in doing so effectively helped the Capitals kill a 53-second two-man advantage. 

All in all the Bruins went 0-for-4 on the power play and are now 1-for-15 on the season. The team's lone power play tally came in the third period of the team's season-opening 5-2 loss to the Coyotes in Prague. At the time, the Nathan Horton goal was a huge sign of encouragement for a team that was clawing its way back into a game, but with the only piece of power play positivity now a week and a half in the rear view mirror, the problem is apparent. 

A troublesome night on the power play against the Capitals isn't necessarily indicative of such struggles given that Washington has killed off all 25 penalties they've had this season. Just as the Bruins have proven very little on the power play, the Capitals have proven quite a bit on the penalty kill. Call it the perfect storm. 

Even so, that 1-for-you-name-it becomes a bit alarming as the second number approaches the twenties. The number just may grow higher on Thursday at the Garden, as they'll face these same Capitals in the home-opener. 

FIRE AWAY

One way of looking at the Bruins' 21 shots on goal Tuesday night is that they very impressively scored on one of every seven shots. The other way, of course, is that they didn't throw throw it on net enough. The players of the second line in particular remain culprits, as they followed up just three shots on Martin Brodeur Saturday with four total on the goaltending cocktail of Michal Neuvirth and Semyon Varlamov.

Here's how the shots on goal looked for the members of each line:

Lucic (3, G, A) - Krejci - (2, G, A) - Horton (0, A)

Caron (2) - Bergeron (0) - Wheeler (2, A) 

Recchi (3) - Seguin (1) - Ryder (1)

Marchand (0) - Campbell (1) - Thornton (0)

It's the first game in Horton's Bruins career that he didn't have a shot on goal in, as he had 10 through the B's first three games of the season. The Bruins as a team also had 35 shots or more in the first three games. Incidentally, the Capitals in six games have had 35 shots on them just once -- though that came in an overtime game on Saturday in which the Predators got 39 shots on Neuvirth. 

Still, they've got 12 goals on the season, which averages out to three per game. That number currently puts them 11th in the NHL, but it's more than half a goal more than they churned out a season ago. Baby steps.