The 2024-25 regular season hasn’t started, yet the Anaheim Ducks are already succumbing to the injury bug. Goaltender John Gibson underwent emergency appendectomy surgery on Oct. 25. Derek Lee of The Hockey News reported Gibson’s absence from practice on Thursday after an awkward save and leaving Wednesday’s practice early.
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Behind Gibson and Lukas Dostal, the Ducks’ goaltending is paper-thin. While Anaheim has a few exciting goaltending prospects in the system, they’re far too early in their development to be on an NHL roster. However, someone needs to back up Dostal to start the season, and whoever that is may have to be in that role for the entirety of October depending on Gibson’s recovery. While Dostal will likely play every game, whoever is thrust into the backup role will only be one injury away from NHL ice.
Lukas Dostal Becomes Temporary Workhorse
Gibson’s injury timetable of 3-6 weeks has a wide range of outcomes. If he returns in the early window he’ll only miss the first few games of the season, with Anaheim’s home game against Utah on Oct. 16 marking three weeks since the injury. The Ducks end October with a four-game road trip against Eastern Conference opponents, so the six-week window likely pushes his debut to November. Regardless of how many games Gibson misses, expect Dostal to play every game in the interim.
While not a name big markets may be familiar with, Dostal has long been considered the heir apparent to Gibson in Anaheim. As a rookie last season, the Czech netminder started 38 games, the biggest bite out of Gibson’s workload since he became the Ducks’ workhorse in 2016-17. Even without the injury, Dostal has a good chance to outstart Gibson as the franchise continues to lean into the youth movement. However, Anaheim would much rather have a fully functioning tandem to face a brutal opening schedule, as the regular season kicks off with a pair of road back-to-backs in the first three weeks. The first back-to-back will be their first two games of the season, all but assuring Gibson’s unavailability for those contests. Dostal has only ever started both legs of a back-to-back once in his career.
Dansk’s Minimal Experience More Than Anyone Else
Anaheim’s goaltending depth beyond Dostal is remarkably inexperienced. The training camp roster includes six goaltenders: Gibson, Dostal, Oscar Dansk, Calle Clang, and Vyacheslav Buteyets (Tomas Suchanek is listed on the roster but is recovering from offseason ACL surgery). Of the four netminders behind Dostal, the only one with any NHL experience is Dansk, a career minor leaguer who played six games for the Vegas Golden Knights between 2017 and 2021 before a one-year stop in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). He’s since returned to North America and played the last two seasons with the Calgary Wranglers of the American Hockey League (AHL). He’s appeared in 171 regular season and 22 postseason contests in the AHL since 2014.
Dansk signed a one-year, two-way deal with Anaheim in the offseason as a veteran option among a sea of inexperience. Clang is an exciting prospect and has the most tenure behind Dansk. However, that experience is less than 40 games in North America and a sub-.900 save percentage last season in the AHL suggests the 22-year-old needs more time to develop. He’s appeared in both of Anaheim’s preseason games for a total of 62 minutes, allowing four goals on 27 shots. Buteyets is even more green, with a 25-minute appearance in one KHL game as his only experience at the professional level.
When commenting about Gibson’s injury, head coach Greg Cronin acknowledged that the biggest impact will be on Dostal’s workload, as well as who his backup will be. While it may still be up in the air, Dansk’s experience will likely earn him the backup job. He may not be a part of Anaheim’s future, but his signing was out of necessity for an experienced backup in an emergency.
