Kuemper, Capitals blank Ducks, 2-0 Bear scores for Caps in the win

In Washington, DC, Darcy Kuemper made 24 saves on Tuesday night in a 2-0 shutout for the Capitals over the visiting Anaheim Ducks. “I thought he was excellent tonight and exactly what we needed,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said of Kuemper. “In the beginning, we weren’t executing with the puck at a really high level offensively, so we needed him to keep that clean. A huge shutout for him.”

Ethan Bear scored the game’s first goal with 38 seconds left in the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Caps.

“You forget how that feeling feels,” Bear said. “It’s definitely nice to get that out of the way, and now I can just have fun and not think about it.”

The Capitals improved to 21-15-6.

“Every time you miss the big piece like Alex, a lot of guys have to step up,” Washington’s Evgeny Kuznetsov said. “Maybe not the most exciting game tonight, but we got the job done. That’s what’s most important for us.”

As a free agent, Bear signed a two-year deal with Washington at the end of December.

“It ricocheted off some bodies, and then I just kind of saw it out of the corner of my eye and stuck my leg out and was able to get a piece of it,” Kuemper said.

The Ducks were playing the back end of a two-games-in-two nights set.

They defeated the Florida Panthers, 5-4, in extra time on Monday night in Sunrise.

The Ducks dropped to 15-28-1.

“We stayed, I thought, pretty sound defensively; didn’t give them too much, even though we weren’t really sharp with our passing and our execution,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “Gibson kept us in the game, and we weathered a little bit of the surge they had in the third period and then we came on [but] we couldn’t score.”

The Caps played their third straight game without Alex Ovechkin who has been sidelined by a lower body injury.

Tom Wilson scored into an empty net with less than a minutes left on the third period clock for the 2-0 final count on the scoreboard. John Gibson made 26 saves in the loss.

“I thought we did a great job in the third trying to push, had some opportunities certainly, but just couldn’t find a way to get that first one,” Anaheim’s Adam Henrique said.