Buffalo Sabres need to take a hard pass on John Gibson

One recent outlet listed the Buffalo Sabres as a team that should try to acquire John Gibson of the Anaheim Ducks. But that would be an ill-fated move.

This past season, Buffalo Sabres rookie goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen toiled through his fair share of struggles. The result was an 0.891 save percentage, a 3.61 GAA, and a quality starts percentage of 0.406.

The upside, however, is that Luukkonen had a nice productive streak between mid-December and throughout January, before tailing off. He’s only 24 and he has just 45 starts in his young career. Sure, he struggled, but at this point, I would keep the young goaltender around if it came down to retaining him or trading for John Gibson.

I get the fact that Gibson played for the lowly Anaheim Ducks, and his 200 goals allowed, 0.899 save percentage, 3.99 GAA, and 0.481 quality starts percentage aren’t entirely on him. But you would think he’d have at least performed better over the last four seasons than he had.

Last season, Anaheim allowed 338 goals, while the Sabres allowed 300, and both had poor defense. That said, it’s hard to imagine Gibson would be an improvement unless Buffalo also upgraded its blue line.

Buffalo Sabres should say, ‘no thank you’ to John Gibson

Gibson hasn’t just posted below-average numbers this past season; it’s been a theme over the past four years. Even with some bad Anaheim teams in front of him, Gibson recorded 19 or more losses each year, led the league in losses three times, had a quality starts percentage of 0.500 or better just once, allowed at least a 2.98 GAA, and never posted a save percentage higher than 0.904. In the one year he didn’t lead the league in losses, he led in overtime losses with 11.

There’s also the fact that Gibson carries an AAV of $6.4 million until 2026-27. Would you be willing to pay for a goaltender who will be 30 this season to ultimately serve as Devon Levi’s 1B (at most) after a season or two? Yeah, the Ducks would be helping me pay for 50% of that.

Poor numbers aside, Gibson would cost way too much to be a backup once Levi’s ready to take on the majority workload. Then there is the trade package itself. A rebuilding team like Anaheim will want at least an A prospect or two for Gibson, and at least a second round pick.

While you can’t pin Gibson’s poor numbers entirely on him, four straight years of posting them should raise some concerns, especially since they all became before age 30. Then there is his contract length, his AAV, and the fact that the Ducks will want to maximize his trade value while they still can. And that means they could want a team to overpay for the goaltender’s services.

Source: Where could the Ducks trade John Gibson? 7 teams that could (and should) want him by Shayna Goldman, TheAthletic.com

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)