Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – That’s a Wrap on the John Gibson speculation.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Friedman: “Now, the (John) Gibson thing, I heard it’s not been easy. You know, just like (Tristan) Jarry battles a lot of abdominal issues, Gibson has had some and I’ve heard that scared a couple of teams.
I still think that guy is a heck of a goalie. He faced almost a record number of shots this year and he kept Anaheim in a lot of games that they had no business being in really. And I think there’s a lot of unfair Gibson hate around there. But I’ve heard they’ve had a really hard time getting any traction there. I think that’s a guy who will bust out in his next place.
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So on Monday night, we have another insert, John Gibson’s agent, Kurt Overhart, released a statement refuting reports that Gibson had said he would not play another game for the Anaheim Ducks. Basically said he wouldn’t handle the situation in that particular way.
And I believe also that Gibson communicated to the Ducks on Monday that he’d never said that and that was not his intension and I think that all worked itself out fine between him and the team.
Look, John Gibson wants a trade. The Anaheim Ducks want to accommodate it. I think the Ducks have found this process harder than they thought.
Now, one of the things here, I have no doubt that Pat Verbeek is asking a lot. There’s a lot of goalies on the market. Gibson has a bit of an injury history. I know that’s been a bit of concern for some teams. But the fact is, he’s an incredibly talented guy and there’s a lot of people out there who believe that in a winning situation, which Anaheim isn’t in right now. He is going to take off. And I know there’s some people out there who really know Gibson and really like Gibson, who would bet on him in that situation.
Now Gibson has a partial no-trade and he does want to go to a team that he thinks can win the Cup. It’s been a challenge for Anaheim to do this so far because of all that. But Gibson I’ve heard is prepared to be patient. You know, I don’t know if everybody here’s going to have to bend a little bit. Whether or not Gibson’s going to have to agree to expand his potential list of destinations or Anaheim’s going to have to come down from it’s ask a bit. Like, I’ve said, I’ve heard Verbeek value Gibson very highly. But I do think there are teams that are kicking around him.
Like one of the teams I think everybody’s kind of wondering about is, are the Devils going to go into next season with (Vited) Vanecek and (Akira) Schmid as their team. Even though I think they really like Schmid a lot, do they think they can win a Stanley Cup that? And that’s going to be a question until basically next season starts or even into next season, if they start with those two goalies.
So that’s where I think it stands right now. I’ve heard Gibson’s prepared to be patient with this. But as it stands at this time, he doesn’t have a long list of teams he really wants to go to and also the Ducks value him very highly. So it’s a slow process and it’s been a challenge for Anaheim to pull this off so far.
