One name that keeps persistently flaring up as a trade rumor to the Edmonton Oilers is John Gibson. These rumors seem to come up, disappear, and then resurface every season for the past few years. What his advocates don't seem to realize, however, is that he doesn’t work as a trade candidate for the Oilers, and it’s always for the same reasons. Let’s go over them right now in the hope that these rumors can finally be put to rest.
1. He's expensive
Gibson, a guy who at one time was one of the NHL's best goalies, has been declining for a long time now - but he's still being paid like he's still one of the NHL's best goalies. But, you say, we could ask Anaheim to retain salary. Well, yes you could, but here's the thing - it'll take a LOT of retained cap space to get him anywhere near his current value.
As an intellectual exercise, let's say GM Stan Bowman engineers a three team trade with Gibson coming to the Oilers. Even if Anaheim retains 50% and the other team retains 50%, that's still only brought him down to $1.6 million a season. Calvin Pickard, the man who would be traded for him, is only making $1,000,000 a season - and even at 32 Pickard has a lot less mileage on his body than Gibson does at 31.
Now you might not think that the difference of $600,000 will add up to much, but it's important to keep in mind that that's ~ 2/3rds of the salary of a good fourth line forward, or bottom pairing D. This leaves less resources on the table for Stan Bowman to upgrade the roster at the trade deadline, which might make or break a trade he's doing to shore up the roster prior to the playoffs.
Contending teams need to watch every cap dollar coming in and going out, and this is no different. Is it wise to spend cap dollars on a veteran who has just hit average numbers for the first time in three seasons and hasn't played a single playoff game in eight seasons? Not in my books.
For my money the best place for John Gibson to be from a cap perspective is to rot on a division rival to the tune of $6.4 million per season just like he is now - and Gibson has another two overpaid seasons after this one so this would not be a rental situation in the least.
2. He's not an old player but he's playing like he is
Naturally since he was one of the NHL's best of yesteryear the Ducks rode him like a rented mule, and the theory is that because he was played so much earlier in his career that he might be cooked now. After all, Gibson has played 60 games once in his career and 50+ games six seasons, even as recently as 2022-23. NHL players are only human just like the rest of us, which means that if they get played too much early on in their careers, they shut down earlier and have an earlier expiry date than their peers.
Right now, it looks like Gibson may not even make it to the end of his contract, much less ride it out until it expires as the Ducks backup to Lukas Dostal, who has taken over as the Ducks starter in the vacuum that Gibson's play has created. Gibson has played a mere 18 games this season to Dostal's 26, and the best he can muster up is average numbers.
Why would you trade for a guy with this much baggage to him? It doesn't make sense to me.