Anaheim Ducks announce John Gibson to miss significant time after having emergency surgery

The Anaheim Ducks were hoping to be a fringe playoff team led by their young core and veteran goalie John Gibson. Today those plans were thrown in a blender when it was announced that John Gibson would be having emergency surgery to remove his appendix. According to sources the appendectomy will now sideline John Gibson for potentially over a month.

The surgery will reportedly keep him out for 3-6 weeks as the NHL season gets underway. From all indications, the surgery went well and John Gibson is now in recovery mode to return as soon as he can.

This season was supposed to be a bounce-back one for John Gibson and the Anaheim Ducks. Over the last 2 seasons, he has struggled particularly on the stat sheet as he tried to survive without much talent around him especially defensively. This summer the Ducks looked to add several pieces to finally become a competitive team again. The culmination of this was making longtime veteran defenseman Radko Gudas the team's captain.

With John Gibson now out head coach Greg Cronin will now likely turn to young goaltender Lukas Dostal as his starter. At 24 years old Lukas Dostal has just 67 games of experience at the NHL level. In those 67 games Lukas Dostal has struggled but once again did not have a strong supporting cast.

The Anaheim Ducks are set to kick off their season against the San Jose Sharks on October 12th. In the meantime it will be interesting to see if they make any moves to add depth to their goaltending position.

As more information is provided on John Gibson's health and eventual return to play will provide the latest updates.