Ducks beat Capitals, 2-0, to clinch Pacific Division title for fourth season in a row

When the Ducks lost nine of their first 10 games, making the playoffs looked like an uphill climb. Now they’re Pacific Division champions for the fourth consecutive season.

Behind a 24-save effort from Frederik Andersen, the Ducks beat the Washington Capitals, 2-0, Sunday night in their regular-season finale.

The Ducks will play Nashville in a first-round playoff series that starts Friday at Honda Center.

“The season’s been up and down, obviously it didn’t start the way we wanted to,” said Corey Perry, who scored a team-leading 34th goal. “We had a lot of meetings early, talked about it and stuff clicked at Christmas. Everybody came back to play and ever since then, it’s been the team that we thought we could be.”

The Ducks were 34-10-5 since Christmas to help Coach Bruce Boudreau win the eighth division title of his career. Boudreau has won the division in each of his seven chances when coaching a team for a full season, dating to his time with the Capitals.

Boudreau called this a “great reward” for players who bought into playing defensive hockey when the goals weren’t coming early. The Ducks gave up the fewest goals in the league this season.

Andersen was sharp in his return from a five-game absence because of a concussion, most notably stopping T.J. Oshie late to preserve the shutout.

“Freddie was tremendous,” Boudreau said. “That could’ve been as good as I’ve ever seen him. His movements, he was square to the puck, there was no extra movements in his game.”

Washington, which takes on the Philadelphia Flyers in a first-round playoff series, rested star forwards Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, and defensemen John Carlson and Brooks Orpik.

Capitals Coach Barry Trotz joked that even though the Flyers had scouts in attendance, “I don’t know if they’ll get a whole lot from that game.”

Backup goaltender Philipp Grubauer stopped 19 shots starting in place of Braden Holtby, who got a rest instead of an attempt to break Martin Brodeur’s single-season victories record. Holtby tied the record Saturday in St. Louis.

“Not a bad effort, though, for the last one, when there’s not a whole lot on the line for us and we’re thinking about next week more than we are tonight,” defenseman Matt Niskanen said.

The Ducks, who got goals from Perry and rookie Nick Ritchie, were locked in on their final regular-season game.

With goalie John Gibson and banged-up center Ryan Kesler sent to Anaheim after the Ducks won Saturday at Colorado, one more victory was all the team needed to complete its season-long comeback.