As they prepared for Tuesday night’s visit from the Dallas Stars, the Ducks could lean not only on improved offense and overall results of late, but on the one effective constant of their campaign: their goaltending.
They’ve won four of their past five outings and averaged four goals per game in the process. They’re undefeated this season when scoring four or more goals (14-0-0, nine regulation wins) and haven’t lost in regulation when tallying three or more times (21-0-2).
When they give their goalies support, they’re all but guaranteed a victory.
The ascendant Lukáš Dostál and veteran John Gibson, who is the longest tenured Duck at any position given that he debuted with the club in 2014, have been the duo with the strongest underlying numbers in the NHL this season despite being roughly average according to most traditional barometers.
Dostál was a tourniquet during a first period in which the Ducks bled chances against Montreal on Sunday. He ceded two goals, but one was in the dying gasp of a power play and the other was a short-handed goal off a complete defensive breakdown. From there, he offered the Canadiens nothing, allowing the Ducks to rally and prevail, 3-2.
“He’s just wired differently or better than a lot of people I’ve been around in terms of his ability to focus and put things behind him. He’s a professional,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “Everything he does in his life is with a purpose, and that gives him a lot of mental toughness and confidence.”
Dostál has won his past three decisions, a pair of starts and a relief appearance after Gibson sustained a minor injury against Nashville. Gibson backstopped perhaps the most impressive triumph in this stretch, a 5-1 trampling of his hometown Pittsburgh Penguins.
Gibson played plenty of high-stakes games early in his career, the sort the Ducks would love to be competing in for the first time since 2018 in the not-so-distant future. He won gold medals at the Under-18 and Under-20 levels with Team USA, including winning both goaltender of the tournament and MVP at the 2013 World Junior Championships. He stepped in during the 2014 playoffs against the Kings and also backstopped the Ducks on their 2017 run to the conference finals.
“(Gibson) has been around forever, right? He’s been through a lot of these battles,” Cronin said.
In addition to their ability to both hold their teams in games and slam the door with a lead, the Ducks’ goalies have been heralded as the top tandem in the league as far as saves above expected.
In a post, the NHL Network’s Mike Kelly laid out an even more comprehensive argument for the Ducks’ two-headed monster in net.
Dostál and Gibson are the only teammates to both rank in the top 10 in goals saved above expected and both netminders rank in the top 17 in save percentage even though the Ducks rank last in expected goals against for in 2024-25, Kelly shared.
Additionally, Kelly said, they had stolen eight games – that’s defined as a goalie’s goals saved above expected being greater than the actual score differential – and just one blown start, where their numbers went in the other direction. That plus-seven differential is the best in the league.
One such steal was the first meeting this season with the Stars, on Nov. 18 in Dallas. Dostál stopped 34 of 36 shots to come out ahead, 4-2, against a team that swept the Ducks in 2023-24. Despite the Ducks scoring two thirds of the goals on the scoreboard, Natural Stat Trick projected Dallas have a 68% proportion of expected goals.
After a slow start for the Stars, Arcadia native Jason Robertson has catapulted himself atop their leaderboard and been the entire NHL’s second-most prolific scorer since Dec. 20.
Robertson’s already formidable supporting cast was bolstered further by a trade with the San Jose Sharks on Saturday, which added forward Mikael Granlund and defenseman Cody Ceci to a group that entered this week with the third-best points percentage of any team.
STARS AT LAKERS
When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Honda Center
How to watch: ESPN+