Lukáš Dostál embraces heavy workload, grabs mantle of Ducks' No. 1 goaltender

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Lukáš Dostál is the Anaheim Ducks’ No. 1 goaltender.

That seems like a fairly obvious statement now, but when the Ducks opened training camp back in September, the Anaheim crease was expected, at worst, to be a split timeshare between veteran John Gibson and the 24-year-old Czech, who was just entering his second season as a full-timer in the NHL.

However, with Gibson needing an emergency appendectomy before the start of the regular season and a few injuries for Gibson over the last two months, it’s clear that the “Dost-Wall” is the team’s No. 1 option now and into the future.

“He's a consummate professional,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “He's a personification of the ideal athlete that you want to coach. He's got high standards that he basically measures himself by on a daily basis and everything he does, and because of that, I think he has the ability to to play a lot of games.

“I think Peter (Budaj, Ducks goaltending coach,) and Pat (Verbeek, Ducks general manager,) will talk about that, but he's definitely a number one goalie I think on any team, and what happens here over the next five games, I think we'll sort that out.”

Gibson has shown return to form this season registering his first save percentage over .900 since 2022 and first sub-3.00 goals against average since 2021, but the 31-year-old opened and closed the season with his unfortunate injury history popping up once again.

With Gibson on the mend to open the season, Dostál picked up the slack starting 11 of Anaheim’s first 13 games with a stellar .922 save percentage and 2.73 goals against average.

Of the Ducks 23 games since the 4 Nations Face-Off, Gibson has made just six starts and been removed from three of them due to injury. In that stretch, Dostál has started 16 games, including five of the last six with six straight appearances.

Dostál has posted career highs with 46 starts, 51 appearances and 23 wins after making 38 starts and 44 appearances with 14 wins in his first full season in Anaheim last year.

“I feel really good, honestly,” Dostál said. “I don't think I've ever played this many games, maybe last year with the world championships, but I like to play a lot. I like to always help the team, and I'm always making sure to take care of my body whenever I can.

“At the end of the day, it's my job and I'm always ready.”

It’s been quite a calendar year for Dostál.

The 24-year-old carried the load down the stretch for the Ducks last season starting in 16 of the final 23 games, including seven of the final eight.

Dostál then rolled into the IIHF World Championships last summer, where he led Czechia to a gold medal on home ice in Prague. Dostâl led the tournament in wins and shutouts, including a 31-save shutout in the title game and a 36-save shutout of Ducks teammate Trevor Zegras and the Americans in the quarterfinals.

“I'm very thankful to have him,” Zegras said. “Playing against him at the World Championships last year, I realized how fortunate we are.”

In Anaheim, it’s not just the amount of starts that represent a heavy workload for Dostál.

Dostál was among the league’s best statistically and analytically through the first two months of the season, but Anaheim’s porous defense and the allowed shot volume eventually ground down his numbers back to Earth.

Among goaltenders with at least 20 appearances, Dostál is first in the NHL in shots faced per 60 minutes and first in saves per 60 minutes. Gibson isn’t far behind at fourth in shots faced per 60 and second in saves per 60 minutes.

With Anaheim’s offense still ranked in the bottom four of the NHL, the task has fallen to Dostál to make the Ducks’ few goals stand up for victories, even when posting a league-high five 40-save efforts.

“Go literally puck by puck. That's literally all you can do,” Dostál said. “Obviously, when it’s a tie game like that, you don't wanna be the guy that makes a mistake. Obviously, you always feel some sense of responsibility for the team because it's a tie game and it’s gonna be about those moments and crunch saves. But I think I'm kind of built for these kinds of moments.

“I like to play these kinds of situations because those are moments that kind of make you grow and gain experience.”

Anaheim has made sizable improvements in the standings year-over-year and reached a stated goal of “meaningful games” later into the season, but a lot of that can be attributed to the stellar goaltending of Dostál and Gibson, when healthy.

That leads the Ducks into decision time this summer.

Dostál will be a restricted free agent with the ability for unrestricted free agency in 2027. Dostál has clearly proved his worth in this rebuilding phase, but with the salary cap projected to increase mightily in the coming years, does Dostál look for a shorter deal with more money available later, or does Anaheim lock down its No. 1 man long term to earn some salary cap savings?

And if Dostál is so clearly the starting goaltender, what does that mean for Gibson’s future? League insiders have pegged Gibson to trade discussions every summer and every trade deadline for several years. However, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported that Gibson’s first injury out of the 4 Nations break ahead of the trade deadline cooled his trade value, and it’s hard to think the two subsequent injuries since then–adding to a history of recurring injuries–haven’t tampered that down further.

Gibson is under contract for two more seasons, and Verbeek plainly stated after the trade deadline that while there was an active market for the 31-year-old, Verbeek was comfortable with one of the top-rated goaltending tandems in the league and it “didn’t make sense” to move Gibson at that time.

Additionally, the Ducks’ developmental goaltending pipeline was shown to be not quite ready to make the jump this season and was thinned out over the course of the year.

When Gibson was sidelined by the appendectomy, the Ducks opted to trade for NHL journeyman James Reimer to back-up Dostál at the outset rather than call up 22-year-old Calle Clang or AHL journeyman Oscar Dansk. Later, due to injuries to Clang and 21-year-old Tomas Suchanek, Anaheim traded for veteran Ville Husso to fill out AHL San Diego’s depth chart, and Husso has come up to back-up Dostál and make two spot starts.

There are also other goaltending prospects in the wings, like 6-foot-6 20-year-old Damian Clara, who just jumped from Europe to San Diego this month, or 6-foot-4 22-year-old Vyacheslav Buteyets, who has shuttled between ECHL Tulsa and San Diego all season.

Point being that Gibson may just stay in Anaheim a while longer while future reinforcements continue to grow and develop, and if he does, Gibson may also have to settle into a more defined back-up role.

Anaheim’s commitment to Dostál as its No. 1 goaltender will become clearer when pen is put to paper in the offseason, but as this season winds down, the “Dost-Wall” is staking his claim as the Ducks' bedrock of the future.