On Wednesday in the aftermath of a 3-0 win over the Vegas Golden Knights, the Washington Capitals were in good spirits at practice. Then they had an injury scare. Goaltender Darcy Kuemper left in major pain. It came after stopping a shot early in the session from T.J. Oshie. The 33 year old got helped back to the Capitals locker room.
It appeared that he took a shot in the groin area. He slid off of the ice like he had broken a skate blade. His teammates got quiet as trainers rushed to the ice to help out Kuemper. The shot hit an unpadded part of his leg.
Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery was asked about his starting net minder and called it “not ideal”:
"“I don’t know. I’ll have to get the report on that but not ideal. I think it was a shot potentially where it caught him in the back of the pad or somewhere lower leg in a spot without padding.”"
Kuemper was limited over the last few days. He got “nicked up” in last week’s game against the Florida Panthers. As a result, the Caps called up Hunter Shepard from the Hershey Bears for the weekend and he got the start in Saturday’s win over the New York Islanders.
On Tuesday, Shepard was sent back down to the Hershey Bears but with no game until Saturday against the Columbus Blue Jackets, he could get a call up yet again. The Bears won 5-4 in overtime over the Wilkes Barre Scranton Penguins. This morning they sent down Mitch Gibson to the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays.
That could be good news in regards to Kuemper. Gibson would not have been sent down if Kuemper was unavailable on Saturday night. If Shepard or Clay Stevenson was needed to join the Capitals, the Bears wouldn’t have sent Gibson down.