{"id":252993,"date":"2025-10-31T19:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/252993\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T19:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:57:08","slug":"gibson-reflects-on-time-in-anaheim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/252993\/","title":{"rendered":"Gibson reflects on time in Anaheim"},"content":{"rendered":"

It will not be the first time that John Gibson<\/a> steps onto the Honda Center ice on Friday night, but it will be his first as a member of the opposition. <\/p>\n

Gibson, who spent 12 years as a member of the Anaheim Ducks<\/a>, was traded to the Detroit Red Wings<\/a> on June 28 in exchange for goaltender Petr Mrazek<\/a> and two draft picks. <\/p>\n

It was a long needed fresh start for the 32-year-old Gibson, who started his Ducks career behind a perennial playoff team before the tides turned in 2018 as Anaheim sank to the bottom of the NHL standings, missing the playoffs in each of the past seven years.<\/p>\n

For the Ducks, they embraced a rebuild under general manager Pat Verbeek, adding young players at all positions, including in net as 25-year-old Lukas Dostal<\/a> took hold of the starting job last season. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was time for me to get a change obviously,\u201d Gibson told The Athletic\u2019s Eric Stephens.<\/a> \u201cAnd Dosty there, giving him the shot. I think for both sides it was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson\u2019s career started with a lot of promise. After being drafted in the second round by Anaheim in 2011, he enjoyed two strong seasons in junior with the OHL\u2019s Kitchener Rangers and backstopped the United States to gold at the 2013 World Juniors.<\/p>\n

He made his NHL debut on Apr. 7, 2014, against the Vancouver Canucks<\/a>, where he stopped all 18 shots he faced in a 3-0 shutout win. <\/p>\n

Despite beating out Frederik Andersen<\/a> for the starting goalie job in 2016 and inking an eight-year, $51.2 million contract extension two years later, it became a tough time in Anaheim. <\/p>\n

The Ducks missed the playoffs in 2019, ending a six-year postseason streak and franchise stalwart Corey Perry<\/a> was bought out that year. As Anaheim\u2019s overall play slipped, Gibson\u2019s numbers did as well. In 2019-20, his save percentage dropped to .904 and then dropped to below .900 in 2022-23 and 2023-24. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hard probably five, six years,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cThat\u2019s the easiest and best way to describe it. It was a lot of stuff going on. I\u2019ll say it was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson\u2019s numbers bounced back last year, as his save percentage rose to .912, his highest since 2018-19 and his goals-against average dipped to 2.74, his best since 2017-18. <\/p>\n

Better numbers and only two years remaining on his deal made facilitating a trade easier, and since landing in Detroit, Gibson has four wins in six appearances so far. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad he\u2019s in our net now,\u201d said Red Wings coach Todd McLellan<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s been a pleasure to see him practice, play. The calming factor that he has on the team is pretty big right now. Some would say, \u2018Look at his numbers, well, he\u2019s not off to a good start.\u2019 Well, if anybody watched those games with our team playing in front of him, you can\u2019t blame him on a lot of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut even [Thursday], we gave up a goal in the first 50 seconds of the game. He was calm. He relaxed. No big deal, I got this. And he made some saves after that were important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It will not be the first time that John Gibson steps onto the Honda Center ice on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[79559,712,49,48,79110,117881,448,82],"class_list":["post-252993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-anaheim-ducks-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-24","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-detroit-red-wings-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-17","tag-john-gibson-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8447161","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}