Nate Bastian and Brenden Dillon finally dropped the gloves midway through the second after battling throughout the game. Neither combatant had much of an edge with some big punches thrown in the corner.
Late in the second, Devils had a chance on one end as Nikita Gusev was denied by Samsonov at the top of the crease. The play went back the other way where Alex Ovechkin buried a shot past Blackwood to put the Caps back in front 3-2.
"We hurt ourselves. The one goal, I just didn't like. Second period turnover at the blueline. Puck management wasn't good," said Ruff. "It might have cost us a point when you look at how the game was going. From the start of the game, they were right on top of us."
After two, shots on goal were 22-17 for the visitors.
In the third, the teams traded power play chances but shots on goal were held to a minimum.
"We could have got a lot of energy from our power play but you saw both teams a little low on energy," noted Ruff. "Both teams' power plays struggled. Even in the third, we had two or three great opportunities. There was a lot of good. Our penalty killing the last few days did a lot of good things but our power play let us down."
The Devils had four shots while the Caps had only one. Shots on goal in the entire game were 23-21 for Washington.
"I don't remember the last time I've been around a game where the shots in the third period were 4-1 but both teams had multiple power plays. It's a crazy number," said Ruff of the third-period shot count.