The Capitals’ Andre Burakovsky is sent to the ice in front of the Maple Leafs’ goal as Toronto’s Connor Brown (12) clears the puck Saturday night. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)

Look out now, because we have a series, a full-throated hockey playoff series, exactly the kind the Washington Capitals didn’t want this early in April. There were points Saturday night when hockey extending into Easter Sunday morning seemed probable, when the most significant problem afoot was the fact that Metro was closing at midnight, and Verizon Center went from some version of insane to comparatively subdued.

Now, though, there are bigger issues, and they have to do with the Capitals’ opponents, the lively and spry Toronto Maple Leafs. They have to do with the Capitals themselves, because they took some silly penalties and failed to score first and couldn’t protect a lead when they had it. And they have to do with — gulp — the city of Toronto itself, a hockey-mad metropolis that has hosted all of three postseason hockey games in the past 12 seasons.

Think they’ll be ready now?

“I’m sure it’ll be pretty revved up,” Washington defenseman Brooks Orpik said late Saturday night, the sweat still fresh following the Caps’ 4-3 loss in double overtime in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.

[Capitals lose Game 2 to Maple Leafs on Kasperi Kapanen’s double-overtime goal]

Air Canada Centre will be revved up because, nearly 92 minutes into Saturday night’s game, Capitals defenseman John Carlson lost his stick in his own end and Toronto winger Kasperi Kapanen was there to pounce, beating Braden Holtby for the game-winner.

Kapanen’s celebration fit the moment, and the Leafs absolutely mobbed him. But his celebration was also about more than that shot, that goal, because the Leafs proved something here over the past two games. They can play the best-in-hockey Caps straight up. Not in two years, like everyone says, because of all their young talent. But take Thursday night’s overtime win for the Caps, combine it with Saturday’s near marathon and the series is even on the scoreboard, in games won — and to the eye.

“We’ve been chasing this series a little bit,” Capitals Coach Barry Trotz said. “It’s been a little bit of an uphill battle.”

Think about that for one second, and try not to shudder. The coach of a veteran team that rang up 55 wins and 118 points — that has the Stanley Cup, and only the Stanley Cup, in mind — believes his team has been chasing the kiddos from the Leafs. You know why he thinks that? Because they have.

[How troubling is the Capitals’ double-overtime Game 2 loss to the Maple Leafs?]

That’s scary, and not just because those who pay casual attention to the NHL, even come springtime, will look at the top-seeded Capitals and their first-round series tied against the clinched-at-the-last-minute Leafs and think, “Typical Washington, choking again.”

Put all that junk aside, because we’re not there — yet. Look at this series and what’s going on around the Capitals. Because Washington, should it shake Toronto, would face the winner of the Pittsburgh-Columbus series in the next round, it’s hard not to simultaneously pay attention to that series, too. While the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Caps have played 157 minutes of hockey in deciding exactly nothing over their first two games against Toronto, the Penguins — their absolute nemesis — have performed in a very business-like manner in beating the Blue Jackets by a combined score of 7-2. They now hold a commanding lead, and Columbus is reeling.

So there are, here, problems with both style and substance. The Capitals have their own issues, for sure, not least of which is taking too many penalties — starting with four in the first period, then Dmitry Orlov late in the second that led to a Toronto power-play goal, and finally Holtby in the first overtime, slashing a Maple Leafs player and giving Toronto’s dangerous power play yet another chance — this time to win it.

Because they lost, the Caps can also lament how they played. This, too, should extend back to Thursday night, when they nervously fell behind early on only to scrap back and win on Tom Wilson’s overtime goal. But by definition, expecting to win an overtime playoff hockey game just because you have the better regular season team is absolute folly. The Caps know that.

[Bog: Capitals-Maple Leafs Game 2 best and worst]

“We probably didn’t deserve to win the first one,” Orpik said, and ain’t that the truth? We’re a sliver away, a bounce or a break, from the Maple Leafs heading home to Ontario with a two-games-to-none lead. Would the province have been able to maintain its composure for Monday’s Game 3?

As it is, this will be wild, because there’s also the matter of the Leafs themselves. Everyone is convinced that they are the living, breathing versions of the 2007-08 Capitals — so young, so enthusiastic, so don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-them fast. They aren’t supposed to be fully formed — championship-ready — for two years or so, the assessment of those Caps of so long ago. But to someone who hasn’t watched these Maple Leafs for 82 games, they look darn scary right this very minute. They’re probably not deep enough or solid enough defensively or mature enough to race all the way to the Cup finals. But don’t think for a second they can’t win a series — this series.

Toronto carried play for so much of the second and third periods, you got the feeling that each minute provided more confidence. So many Leafs hadn’t appeared in a playoff game before this week. Yet they know, now, that they have twice played in the home building of the Stanley Cup favorites (embrace that title still, Caps fans), and have essentially played them even for 60 minutes, and more, each time.

“We expect a long series against Toronto,” veteran forward Justin Williams said, “and we’ll battle as long as we have to.”

We know now that will be at least for the two upcoming games in Toronto, and then Friday night back here at Verizon Center. The Caps could win them all, because two shaky games don’t undo the 82 that preceded them.

But this is no longer a cute little preview of the NHL’s team of the future. This is a series between two game teams that look in some ways to be evenly matched. That might not be what the Capitals wanted when the playoffs began. But that’s exactly what they have, and they have no choice but to deal with it.