Fans enraptured by a second period Caps goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs. After last night’s 6-4 victory over Toronto, the season the Caps are undefeated and scoring two goals for every one they give up. They have been defensively perfect from the start of any match until they have at least three goals of their own. Superstars Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin have scored three points in each game. Both Caps starting goalies have won. The whole team is playing well. Everybody is doing their job to a tee and the fans are going crazy.

Not a bad start.

But the most amazing thing about last night’s home opener at Verizon Center wasn’t the remarkable energy and execution out of the gate — although that did have former Caps coach Ron Wilson feeling like he was “in a piranha fish tank” behind the bench of the much-improved Toronto Maple Leafs. The amazing, if unsurprising, thing about last night was that Caps fans filled every seat in the building, all wearing red and screaming together.

During the national anthem, the Capitals “Red” was, if not louder, at least every bit as loud as the Oriole “O” in the next line. From then on, a mob mentality prevailed: when the Caps scored, everybody screamed. When they almost scored, everybody screamed. When Varlamov caught the puck, everybody screamed.

Since the lockout, Caps hockey has been mostly prosaic. Individual plays were cheered (or jeered) based on their individual merits. A couple hundred fans sometimes agreed that a play was worthy of praise, and so they got together with their hundred most polite indoor voices and said “yay.”

Now the same small plays are measured according to their meaning in an epic narrative of a team’s quest to bring an ice hockey championship to the nation’s seat of power. The time on the clock has become a rhythm. The steps of each skater, iambs. Each movement of the puck, poetry. Every regular season victory, a prophecy of the greatness to come in the time beyond.