I never said it was perfect, it just illustrates how mediocre to bad Gibson has been the last few years. You can't solely blame the defense or the part of the defense you don't like.
Workload can matter, for sure.
Maybe he's having personal problems, maybe he can't handle the mental workload. Maybe he's not physically able to handle the workload at 28 that he did when he was in his early twenties. Maybe none of that is true, we have no way of knowing.
Teams also spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on analytics.
Pro scouts thought Ristolainen was worth 14OA and a second round pick. Maybe they were thinking they knew better than all those stats nerds that were showing how he was bad even compared to his teammates, across multiple years, and would be an great top 4 dman with just a change of scenery.
Some players can, some players go through personal struggles like Morrissey we don't know about then come back and play great.
Again, maybe he rebounds and has a strong season and you can get a boatload for him (or just keep him to compete) He certainly had elite seasons before this bad stretch of years.
Certainly a big risk for the Leafs with the cap hit and term.
I think if we dive deeper into those goals he's expected to stop, you would see the same trends that Ducks fans are talking about. I would predict that they occur at a much higher rate as the year goes on (and as the Ducks fade further from the playoff picture), and also more frequently in games when the team is already at a deficit.
There has definitely been a tendency (whether it be from frustration, self preservation or some of each), to not look nearly competitive on nights where the team is badly outclassed early, down by a couple goals and barely able to clear center ice.
I'm not saying none of the stinkers are happening when he's competing his hardest because that would be absurd, but I am suggesting that a large quantity of those goals are in games that the Ducks were already well out of. I doubt any goalie in the league over these past few seasons has spent more more minutes playing in games where it truly wouldn't matter whether they allowed 3 or 6 goals. People can say what they want about professionalism and competitiveness but I think the best tend to save their best for when it matters.
We saw as recently as the first half of this year, that if you put even a semi competitive team in front of Gibson, he's more than capable of taking care of the rest. The Ducks top 3 veteran D were all finally healthy for a length of time, and a rejuvenated Getzlaf meant they could actually for first time in years have two lines that actually drive some offense the other way. Still a pretty mediocre group on paper but they were good enough to compete most nights and were winning propped up by Vezina caliber goaltending from Gibson.
Then the injuries start again, to both the D and Getz who never really bounced back again. Back to a one line team with mediocre D at best, and the long nights start to pile up again. There was a stretch of about 10 games in the middle of the season, where the Ducks were easily the worse team each game, and it was almost a full reset back to the previous couple of years. Then of course the deadline comes with two of the top D being moved and essentially left half an NHL D corps for the remaining quarter season.
I really don't think Gibson suddenly regained his talent at the start of the year and then lost it again. Success as a goalie hinges so much more on the surrounding environment then even the most advanced of stats can really account for.