Goaltender Questions for the Anaheim Ducks

It was announced earlier today that Anaheim Ducks’ goalie John Gibson will miss the next six weeks with a groin injury suffered in warm-ups Sunday night.  Gibson was off to a fast start for the Ducks who sit atop the league with 20 points through 13 games.  In four games so far this season he has posted a 2-2 record with a 2.28 goals against average and .927 save percentage as the primary backup to Frederick Andersen.

Despite the Anaheim Ducks’ hot start, the timing of Gibson’s injury is not ideal (to be fair, when is an injury every ideal) as Andersen is also dealing with a leg injury that kept him out of the Ducks’ game Sunday night and forced the Ducks to start third stringer, and AHL’er, Jason LaBarbera.  Things only got more interesting when Gibson went down in warm-ups forcing the Ducks to dress goaltender coach Dwayne Rolosson.  And yes, there was a part of me that was hoping LaBarbera would need be forced out of the game only to see Rolosson flopping around one more time in his strong career.  To his credit LaBarbera was able to secure a win for his team.

Now that things appear to be stablized with the Ducks calling up prospect Igor Bobkov from the Norfolk Admirals, the big question will now focus on the Ducks’ goaltending situation as a whole: is it good enough to lead this team to a title?  They correctly allowed veteran Jonas Hiller to sign with the Calgary Flames over the summer, fully entrusting the goaltending reigns to Andersen and Gibson.  Both goalies excelled in the regular season (albeit Gibson only appeared in three games) before things went off the rails in the playoffs.  Between injuries and effectiveness, Hiller, Andersen, and Gibson all saw significant time before the Ducks were ousted by the Kings in the Western Conference Semi-Finals (Gibson started game seven but was mercifully yanked after allowing four goals in a little more than a period before Hiller mopped up.)

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The Ducks have talent up and down the lineup: perennial MVP candidates Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry lead the way, but newly-acquired Ryan Kesler has brought balance to the Ducks’ top six.  Patrolling the blue-line are youngsters Cam Fowler and Sami Vatanen who anchor a stingy team defense (only allowed 27.8 shots per game going into Tuesday night).  However, how far this team goes come the spring will come down to the man between the pipes, whomever that may be at that time.

While no one doubts their talent, the two combined have less than 50 regular season games of NHL experience.  Can such a green duo lead this team to a Cup?  There is precedence: Cam Ward led the Carolina Hurricanes to a title his rookie season.  Antti Niemi was a rookie in 2009/10 when leading the Blackhawks to a Stanley Cup.  While no one can will take away from what Ward and Niemi were able to do, the Andersen-Gibson duo is more  talented and more highly touted than those two were.  Simply put, if those two could lead a team to a title, why can’t the Ducks have similar success with their two studs?

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At this point the only concern with the Andersen-Gibson duo is injuries.  As long as Andersen can return from his leg injuries within the next few days and not suffer any future setbacks, the Ducks should be able to weather the Gibson injury with LaBarbera or Bobkov handling the backup duties in the interim.  Until the end of the calendar year the Ducks only have four-sets of back to back games.  Therefore Ducks’ coach Bruce Boudreau can ride Andersen if he is healthy for the immediate future until Gibson comes back healthy and only have to turn to the backup a handful of times over the next two months.  Over these next two months encompassing 26 games, only 10 are against teams that made the playoffs last year.  The schedule is favorable for the Ducks to not only maintain its lead in the Pacific, but add to it as well with Andersen leading the charge.

The Anaheim Ducks have proved over the past few seasons they are built for regular season success.  Come April it will be time for the duo of Frederik Andersen and John Gibson to prove to Ducks’ management that they made the right decision placing its trust in this dynamic, young duo.  And my guess is they will both hold up their end of the bargain.