Column: Ducks goalie John Gibson keeps his emotions and the opposition in check

John Gibson was living a goaltender’s nightmare.

Protecting a one-goal lead over Edmonton in a game the Ducks had to win or be pushed to the brink of playoff elimination, he suddenly faced a three-on-one rush just past the midway point of the second period Sunday. Ducks defenseman Brandon Montour had gotten trapped in the offensive zone as play turned quickly the other way, leaving only Hampus Lindholm back as Leon Draisaitl carried the puck up the left side, Patrick Maroon cruised up the middle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins dashed up the ice on their right. It was a pivotal moment, a potential series-changer.

Fans at Rogers Place roared and broadcasters screamed as the play unfolded, anticipating the Oilers would tie the game. Gibson was the calmest person in the frenzied arena. His only thought: “To try and keep the puck out of the net,” he said.

But how?

“I kind of had an idea he was going to pass it,” Gibson said of Draisaitl. “I didn’t know who he was going to pass to because he had two guys over there. I just tried to get most of my body in front of it. … He gave it to Maroon, and he got a pretty hard shot away. He got a lot of it.”

Gibson got enough of it with his glove to repel the puck. But the Ducks’ peril wasn’t over, because the puck was loose and Nugent-Hopkins pounced on it near the right post. Gibson had no time to think. “I didn’t even know if he got the rebound on that, to be honest with you. I just kind of laid there and hoped it hit me,” he said Monday. “Sometimes, athleticism or instincts take over.”

The athleticism that distinguished him since his childhood in Pittsburgh, where he followed the Penguins and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, allowed Gibson to make the sprawling stop on Nugent-Hopkins that preserved the Ducks’ lead. Gibson made six saves before the second intermission for a total of 14 in the second period and made four more stops in the third period as the Ducks pulled away for a 6-3 victory that cut Edmonton’s lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1.

It was the perfect sendoff for the Ducks’ two-day sojourn in Kelowna, which is about an hour’s flight away from hockey-mad Edmonton and sits in the middle of Canada’s wine country. Gibson and the Ducks earned a bit of tranquility after the craziness of Sunday night, which guaranteed the series will return to Anaheim for Game 5 on Friday night. They will practice in Kelowna on Tuesday before returning to Edmonton for Game 4 on Wednesday.

“He made some point-blank stops. The three-on-one. A couple two-on-ones,” marveled teammate Chris Wagner, who had given the Ducks a 4-3 lead at 9:28 of the second period on a wobbling shot that got past Edmonton goalie Cam Talbot from a sharp angle. “You don’t like to give those up, but we know he has the capability of saving some opportunities like that.”

When Randy Carlyle returned to coach the Ducks last summer, nearly five years after his first term with the team had ended, he didn’t know much about Gibson as a person or as a goalie. Carlyle did his homework. Seeking insights, he spoke to Steve Spott, who had been Carlyle’s assistant in Toronto and had coached Gibson for the junior-level Kitchener Rangers, and to Ducks assistant coach Trent Yawney, who had coached Gibson in the minor leagues.

They told him Gibson wasn’t demonstrative but that didn’t mean the young goalie, who was chosen 39^th by the Ducks in the 2011 entry draft, was uncaring.

“He had a competitive spirit that really wasn’t displayed like you would normally think some people want it displayed,” Carlyle said of their insights on Gibson. “He’s more of an introverted guy. He burns inside. He tries to keep his emotions in check. He tries to be as much focused on what he can control inside of him, versus outwardly displaying it.”

That was true Sunday in the way Gibson approached that outnumbered rush. “That’s the competitiveness, that’s the timing of the save,” Carlyle said Monday. “The time of the game. The dramatics of it. If it’s a three-on-one, two-on-one, a breakaway, people don’t really remember that at the end of the night on the score sheet. But we remember it as a coaching staff because we live it.”

Gibson and the Ducks survived intact, just as they survived his rebound-prone performance against Calgary in Game 3 of the first round. He was yanked from that game but came back to make 36 saves in Game 4 and clinch that series. The kid who couldn’t make his high school hockey team in Grade 9 has made the grade in the NHL, carried by a fierce competitiveness that might not be evident at first glance but comes to the surface at important moments.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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