Next up on our Washington Capitals player report card series is Ethan Bear. He was brought on in December to help out a banged up defense. It didn't quite work out as he entered the player assistance program by the NHLPA to work on his mental health which is always a priority before sports.
Bear finished with one goal and three assists for four points in 24 games along with a plus/minus of -5 along with 10 penalty minutes. He averaged 14:54 minutes of ice time per game.
Final Grade D: According to the numbers on Natural Stat Trick, Bear finished with a corsi for percentage of 45.37 percent, but a lowly expected goals for percentage of 40.89 percent. His high danger chances for was at 42.48 and all these numbers came at five on five.
These are the worst ones to grade of all. We felt bad for the guy when he entered the player assistance program and most importantly we hope he gets the mental health help that he needs. You never want to hand out D's especially considering we barely got to see him play as he only suited up for 24 games and spent some nights as a healthy scratch in Carbery's system.
The good news on Bears' end is that he did return to D.C. after he was in the player assistance program. This came from Sammi Silber of The Hockey News in late April. We encourage you to check out her work and top notch reporting.
Bear entered the program back on March 27 and missed the postseason including the Caps first round exit to the New York Rangers. And the reason he was in the program is confidential which is a policy set by both the league and the NHLPA. Hopefully the next report card will be less grim.