The Washington Capitals were out of the playoffs just one day before the first trade rumbling about a player emerged. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman tossed out goaltender Darcy Kuemper’s name as one he believes the Caps will try and move this offseason.
Kuemper, signed to a five-year deal during the 2022 free agency period, makes $5.25 million annually against the cap for the next three seasons. The veteran backstop is coming off of the worst statistical season in his career and lost his starting job to Charlie Lindgren, making just 13 starts after the New Year.
“Don’t pay attention till it happens,” Kuemper said Tuesday. “There’s always going to be rumors floating around, so you just kind of wait to see if anything happens, I guess. You can’t really get caught up in worrying about things that are speculative.”
The 33-year-old’s poor play is compounded by the fact that the Capitals had perhaps the two best goaltenders in all of the AHL down with the Hershey Bears this season. Hunter Shepard and Clay Stevenson dominated minor-league opposition and would save the Caps a ton of money if one of them supplanted Kuemper in net.
Kuemper didn’t sound like a netminder ready to go anywhere during his Breakdown Day interview though. The 2022 Stanley Cup champion believes he has made good progress with goaltending coach Scott Murray in recent weeks and was confident when asked if he plans on winning his job back in the fall.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Kuemper said.
In 33 games this year, Kuemper amassed a 13-14-3 record with a 3.31 goals-against average, a .890 save percentage, and one shutout. Per MoneyPuck, Kuemper allowed 4.8 more goals than expected which ranked 75th in the league among the 98 goaltenders to play this year.
The 30 games that Kuemper started were the least in a non-injury or pandemic-impacted season since he served as the Los Angeles Kings’ backup for much of the 2017-18 campaign. He made just 25 starts that year split between the Kings and Arizona Coyotes.
“It was challenging at times for myself just not having some of the results that I’m used to and then not playing as much as I’m used to either,” Kuemper said. “There was a stretch of results that weren’t up to my standard and then I didn’t play a whole lot so it was hard to turn that around.”
Kuemper’s offseason plans are to continue the work he started with Murray. He pointed out some issues he had with judging how deep to play in his net this past year but asserts that he feels like his game is in a good place heading into the summer.
“I’m just going to work hard, excited for the challenge of earning some more ice time, earning playing time back,” Kuemper said. “Throughout my career, I’ve had to always earn it so this is nothing new to me. Just do what I have to do.”
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