John Gibson, Anaheim Ducks (Amy Irvin / The Hockey Writers)

Ducks’ John Gibson Nominated for 2025 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers
By Jordan Reinhardt | Last updated Apr 10, 2025 4:10 PM ET

The Anaheim chapter of The Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) has nominated John Gibson for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy. This trophy is awarded annually to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to ice hockey.

This is Gibson’s first nomination for the award after Urho Vaakanainen, Jakob Silfverberg, Ryan Getzlaf, and David Backes were the Ducks’ nominees in the four previous seasons.

The nomination comes with little surprise, as the veteran netminder has endured a series of injuries in 2024-25, starting with an emergency appendectomy during training camp that delayed his season debut until November. The health concerns have reduced his workload to 29 appearances this season, during which he has posted an 11-11-2 record.

Gibson has amassed or approached a number of personal and franchise milestones this season despite the lightest workload of his career since becoming the Ducks’ full-time starter in 2016. For starters, his 2.77 goals-against-average (GAA) and .912 save percentage (SV%) are his best in each category in his last six seasons. His 200th-career victory came in a Jan. 5 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, becoming just the second goaltender, alongside none other than Jean-Sebastien Giguere, in Ducks history to do so.

He made his 500th-career appearance in a Feb. 4 game against the Dallas Stars, becoming the first goaltender to make that many appearances with the club. He owns additional franchise records for starts (494) and saves (14,034) and sits second in wins (204) and third in shutouts (24).

Gibson Is a Franchise Legend in an Interesting Place

Gibson is the longest-tenured Duck now that his longtime teammate Cam Fowler was traded to the St. Louis Blues earlier this season. The two share the unfortunate fate of seeing their careers, and perhaps potential, suffer as a result of playing the bulk of their physical primes during the Ducks’ rebuilding years from 2018-2024.

And yet, Gibson, who has dealt with trade rumors and health concerns for years now, found his footing this season to form one of the best goaltending tandems in the NHL alongside Lukas Dostal, who has emerged as the future of the position in Anaheim. It leaves Gibson, who clearly has some game left when healthy, in an interesting place next season and beyond. He earned this nomination, though, for what he persevered through to get to where he is. Kudos, Gibby!

He joins a list of 31 other players from across the NHL who were nominated. The PHWA will narrow down the list to three finalists and select the winner at a later date. Congratulations and good luck to all the nominees.