The Ducks didn’t get enough for John Gibson

The Anaheim Ducks have finally moved on from goaltender John Gibson, moving him to the Detroit Red Wings for Petr Mrazek, a second round pick and a fourth round pick. However, most of the conversation surrounding the trade have been how underwhelming of a return it was for the Ducks, as well as the disappointment that other teams didn’t pursue him if the price was that low.

Matt Larkin and Tyler Yaremchuk talked about the Gibson trade and what it says about the current goaltending market on Daily Faceoff Live.

Matt Larkin: If you look at how barren the goaltending market is right now, Joel Hofer re-signing when he was a potential offer sheet candidate, you have Jake Allen out on the market. But John Gibson was one of the few guys available potentially that I think still has starter ability, and I think there’s still enough of a demand for him that the price should have been higher on that trade.

And John Gibson, yes, he’s sort of been in obscurity in Anaheim for the last half-decade, but this year was a big bounce back year for him. If you look at goals saved above expected per 60 minutes, he was top five in the NHL. So I don’t love the return.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, we had heard last week, Frank had mentioned that Anaheim was maybe looking to get premium assets. I think he brought up two first round picks at one point.

This is also just a great reminder that goalies never go for as much as you think they will. The Ryan Miller trade a decade plus ago was maybe the one outlier, but I even think about Jacob Markstrom, who got traded with two more years on his deal, and the Calgary Flames had to keep $2 million of that contract, and he got a first round pick and Kevin Bahl. And again, a lot, but that was a premier goalie with salary retained for a number of seasons. It felt like the New Jersey Devils were almost paying more for the retention than the goalie.

I think it’s a good reminder going forward that when you go into the goalie trade market, it’s never going be for multiple premier pieces. That’s just never been how the market plays out.

Matt Larkin: Yeah, I think the weird paradox is that you like to say that goaltending is the most important position in the league, but also it’s strangely easy to find good goaltenders because when there’s only 32 starting spots, the 35th best goalie in the world is still elite.

So every year, you have goalies coming in relatively cheap that take over and have great years. Look at Logan Thompson and Anthony Stolarz, neither guy was a starter on his own team the previous year, and they were two of the best goalies in the league this past season.

You can watch the full episode here…