Ducks John Gibson Drops Behind-The-Back Save Of The Year Candidate

Goaltender John Gibson is one of the elder statesmen on what is a pretty young Anaheim Ducks roster but, man, he can still throw down a highlight reel save every now and again.

And the one he dropped on the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night could just be our front-runner for Save of the Year.

The Ducks were up in Vancouver for a date with the Canucks (who busted out the Flying Skate sweaters for the occasion; love those).

Fans in attendance barely had to wait only about a minute to get their money's worth for the evening because, at around the 1:00 mark of the first period, the Canucks entered the Ducks zone, with Brock Boeser — who could have played his last game as Canuck as he continues to be a frequent subject of trade rumors ahead of Friday's trade deadline — broke to the net and got an incredible feed from Pius Suter.

Boeser quickly put the puck on net with Gibson making the initial save, but the rebound popped up and behind him.

No problem; Gibson had it covered.

John Gibson just committed a robbery and a brazen one at that.

I love a good "lizard brain" save like that. One where it seems like Gibson's brain just turned to its natural puck-stopping instincts and told his brain what to do to keep that biscuit out of the basket.

Will it be the save of the year when it's all said and done? I don't know; it might. There are some tough contenders. I think New Jersey's Jakob Markstrom has a few nominees of his own.

That was great, but I've still got to hand the prize over to Gibson.

Unfortunately for the Ducks, they could've used a couple more of those saves because they wound up losing to the Canucks by a score of 3-2.