Gibson making most of opportunity with Islanders

EDMONTON --
Christopher Gibson
has been sharp in his two starts in goal for the New York Islanders this season, each in the past week, but even that hasn't been able to lift the Islanders out of their late-season slide.
Gibson is 0-0-2 with a 1.88 goals-against average and .953 save percentage in his two games. He made 35 saves but allowed two goals in the shootout and the Islanders lost 2-1 against the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.

An eighth consecutive loss (0-4-4) cost the Islanders more ground in the race for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Islanders (29-29-10, 68 points) are seven points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild card from the Eastern Conference.
Gibson, 25, has started two of the past three games for the Islanders. He made 47 saves, an NHL rookie record for a Finland-born goalie, but lost 3-2 in overtime against the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 3.
"I've been lucky enough to play against other big players in my few NHL starts so it's always exciting, but it's frustrating leaving with only one point," Gibson said Thursday.
Six of Gibson's 35 saves against the Oilers on Thursday came in overtime, plus he had to try to stop a penalty shot by Oilers leading scorer Connor McDavid, who hit the left post.

McDavid scored his 31st goal of the season with 1:50 remaining in the third period to force the game to overtime. It was an extraordinarily bad break for Gibson, in that McDavid's intended pass from behind the net bounced off the stick of Islanders defenseman Brandon Davidson and off Gibson's mask before winding up in the net.
McDavid scored the deciding goal in the shootout when he coasted in from the right side, made several quick moves and then scored from the far side after Gibson went down.
"He's a great player," Gibson said of McDavid. "He has a lot of speed. I'll leave it at that. He's a great player. … He has great hands, quick hands. He did a move and I bit on his move and he ended up scoring. That's it."
Gibson was recalled from Bridgeport of the American Hockey League on Feb. 19 after an injury to goalie Thomas Greiss. His road to the NHL has been a long one.
Born in Karkkila, Finland, he grew up about 35 miles south in Espoo. When he was 15 he attended Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, to play midget hockey, and was selected by Chicoutimi of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with the No. 16 pick of the 2009 Canadian Hockey League import draft.
He was selected No. 49 by the Los Angeles Kings in the 2011 NHL Draft but never signed, and signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs as an unrestricted free agent on July 19, 2013. Toronto then traded him to the Islanders with defensemen Matthew Finn and Tom Nilsson, and forwards Taylor Beck and Carter Verhaeghe for forward Michael Grabner on Sept. 17, 2015. He's spent time in the ECHL and AHL, with his only previous NHL experience four games with the Islanders in 2015-16.
Gibson's father, Peter, is a black-belt kickboxer and artist from England. His mother, Ulla, is from Finland. Gibson speaks Finnish, English and French and did interviews in each after the game in Edmonton.

"It's been a long and hard path, to be honest with you," he said. "It hasn't been easy, but that's why I cherish every single moment I'm here, every single minute, every single chance I get to play.
"I still have a lot of things I need to work on to get to where I want to be, but it's frustrating to leave here with only one point tonight."
Gibson provided the Islanders with the kind of goaltending they'll need if they have any hope to move back into a playoff spot.
But such was the frustration Thursday that coach Doug Weight couldn't even contemplate whether Gibson was worthy of more starts during the final 14 games of the regular season.
"That's like the second-hardest thing to think of after a loss like that," Weight said. "The first is getting a camera shoved in your face after the eighth straight loss. That's the hardest thing to deal with for me personally. I'm not good at it."
The Islanders play the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; SN, MSG+, NHL.TV), then have nine of their final 13 games of the regular season at home.