ANAHEIM, Calif. – John Gibson was back in his office on Saturday night.
That felt important for him, a competitor who for years — until this one — has been the goalie the Anaheim Ducks leaned heavily on. It felt important for the Ducks, who are trying try to wedge their way into the Western Conference wild-card picture. It also felt important for potential trade partners that might have wondered how long he would remain out of the lineup.
The prognosis for Gibson’s upper-body injury was never dire, and the 31-year-old netminder only missed three games before returning against the Chicago Blackhawks. That’s big for the Ducks, since Gibson has had a below-the-radar redemption season while sharing time with Lukáš Dostál. The two have given excellent play to an Anaheim club filled with promise and flaws. They’re a huge reason why the Ducks are paying attention to the standings and playing consequential games this time of the year.
It’s been a long, bumpy road to get here. And it has often been a rough ride for Gibson in the six years the Ducks have been away for the postseason. He’s played for some of the worst teams in franchise history over that span, and the Ducks’ cumulative .421 points percentage from 2018-19 to 2023-24 was the worst in the NHL. Even though he’s just four wins away from tying Ducks legend Jean-Sebastien Giguere for goalie wins, Gibson has seen his record plummet under .500.
Dostál is the younger, more affordable option now, and he has established himself as a goalie the Ducks can bank on more often than not. Without question, the 24-year-old is their future in net. But this season, Gibson has reminded all who have written him off that he is still worth watching when he’s on his game.
With the NHL trade deadline on Friday, the Edmonton Oilers scouted Saturday’s game at Honda Center. The Oilers stopped a five-game losing streak Saturday with a win at Carolina, and while Calvin Pickard had a strong 35-save effort, he’s a career backup who won’t be their playoff goalie in any regular scenario. Stuart Skinner is their guy, and it’s true that he made some big saves in Edmonton’s run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. It’s also true that Skinner has a pedestrian .898 save percentage this season and tends to waver between solid and skittish.
The Oilers are under pressure to win it all while they have the game’s best player, Connor McDavid, and this season’s potential Hart Trophy winner, Leon Draisaitl, at the peak of their powers. Skinner’s up-and-down play is one reason why they’ve been connected to Gibson as a possible trade target.
Gibson didn’t leave a good impression on Saturday. It was a bad loss for the Ducks, who don’t have any room for error and yet were about as error-laden as a team could be in their 6-3 loss to the lowly Blackhawks. Terrible puck management fed right into Chicago getting numerous rush chances. And this was a throwback game for Gibson in the worst way, with him unable to stop all the grade-A looks the Blackhawks had.
The Ducks remained six points away from the second wild-card spot and failed to gain ground on Vancouver, Calgary and Utah, three teams they must climb over, all of which lost. The Ducks’ recent 8-2-1 run fueled this push but also created a false sense of security that led to this defeat.
“You know what’s a lesson?” Ducks coach Greg Cronin asked aloud, repeating a reporter’s question. “A lesson is, you can’t underestimate an opponent. There’s no doubt in my mind that there was a sense of overconfidence. And the players know, they’re educated. They look at the standings. They see (Seth) Jones gets traded. (Nick) Foligno’s out. They have good players out and I think they lost their focus.”
Gibson was strong in the first period with several big saves as the Ducks repeatedly coughed up the puck in bad spots. He had a nice glove save on Connor Bedard and foiled Frank Nazar and Ilya Mikheyev. And it continued early in the second, when he stopped Andreas Athanasiou on a breakaway and denied Nazar again. It looked like the Gibson of old when he kept the Ducks in a game long enough to where they could get their act together.
But on a night when he was honored for becoming the first Ducks goalie to play in 500 games, Gibson lost his way after Wyatt Kaiser beat him five-hole for his second career goal after walking past a crossed-up Mason McTavish. The Blackhawks had only 24 shots on goal, but too many were point-blank, and Gibson made only 18 saves. The game was officially out of hand in the third period, when potential Chicago trade piece Ryan Donato scored the first of his two goals on a five-on-three power play.
The best takeaway for Gibson was that he went the distance after being forced to leave his Feb. 22 start in Boston. It was the second time in a span of five outings that he had to leave a game early, with Cronin calling it a recurring issue. Another narrative that’s followed Gibson throughout his career is that he isn’t durable, and an emergency appendectomy in September didn’t help counter that, as it delayed his season opener until Nov. 10.
But until Dostál started his rise last season, Gibson started 68 percent of the team’s games over a six-year span. As much as he’s wanted to have the lion’s share of starts, Gibson has benefited from the split workload with Dostál this season. Before Saturday, Gibson had a .916 save percentage, after his career-worst .888 in 2023-24. Even after Saturday, Evolving-Hockey had him making 11 more saves than expected.
It’s not the remarkable 26.44 GSAx that Dostál is posting, but Gibson’s play should make him attractive to a playoff club that has a better defensive structure. That could be Carolina, another Cup hopeful often mentioned as a suitor.
The Hurricanes’ total of 312 wins since the start of 2018-19 puts them behind only Tampa Bay and Boston, but they have yet to play for a title, with just two trips to the conference finals —in which they were swept both times. Lack of timely scoring has hurt them, but they’ve also lost the goaltending battle. Ironically, Andersen is part of a tandem with Pyotr Kochetkov, but the former Ducks goalie has been prone to allowing untimely soft goals in the playoffs, and Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour hasn’t put full faith in Kochetkov as his postseason backbone.
Gibson’s contract is what it is. He has a $6.4 million salary-cap number with has two more seasons on it after this. He’s got a 10-team no-trade list, but it’s believed that he is willing to open it up to put more teams under consideration. The Oilers and Hurricanes are among them.
It’s also been reported that Gibson is open to leaving Anaheim but wants a path to be the clear No. 1 again. The Ducks would prefer not to retain any salary but aren’t ruling that out completely. While retaining the maximum 50 percent would make Gibson a lot more attractive at $3.2 million, they Ducks also believe Gibson’s improved play and the rising salary-cap ceiling can lower the amount of dead money they would have on their ledger — if not remove it altogether if a team takes on his remaining full freight. They’ve got the space to take back an expiring contract to help make the money work.
Doing that would keep more cap space free for when it’s time to address new contracts for Dostál and McTavish, with Leo Carlsson, Jackson LaCombe, Cutter Gauthier and Pavel Mintyukov or Olen Zellweger — or both young defenders — also needing to be paid down the line. Trevor Zegras shouldn’t be excluded if he has a rebound season in 2025-26 and is part of their long-term plan.
The Ducks are also fine with keeping Gibson if a deal can’t be worked out by Friday, or even this summer. In him and Dostál, they’ve got a pair capable of regularly delivering quality starts for a team that should go into next season expecting to make the playoffs. But if a team does step up with a strong offer, they still need to make a Gibson trade happen.
Having him back at work and healthy is a step toward that, no matter how rough the night was at the office.
(Photo of John Gibson: Gary A. Vasquez / Getty Images)
