Gibson, Ducks blank Kings, 1-0

In Anaheim Sunday night, the Ducks got a 24-save effort from John Gibson in a 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Kings.

“This time of the season, that’s the way it’s going to be,” Gibson said. “Going into the playoffs and towards the end of the year, games are going to be tight. There’s not much room for error, so you have to be pretty good.”

John Gibson picked up 5th shutout of the season Sunday – file photo by Lewis Bleiman

It was Gibson’s fifth shutout of the season.

Josh Manson was the game’s lone goal scorer with less than two minutes gone in the second period.

He took a feed from Ryan Getzlaf before writing a shot for the goal.

“Anytime [Getzlaf] gets the puck and turns up with it on that side of the ice, I know he sees you. He sees everything,” Manson said. “I just tried to find a hole.”

The game featured few shots early on as both teams played a tight checking scheme.

“That’s the way we want to play,” Gibson said. “Obviously we’re not scoring a ton of goals, so we’ve got to find other ways, and it starts with defense.”

Gibson had terrific support from this defense and back checking forwards who kept the play to the outside all night.

“You have to look at the team game and the number of chances we gave up. We were well under 10. … We didn’t spend a lot of time in the defensive zone except for a few flurries, and when they did, we kept everything to the outside” Anaheim head coach Randy Carlyle said of the club’s scheme.