ANAHEIM, Calif. — After three years as a consultant overseeing the Anaheim Ducks’ collection of talented young goaltenders, Sudarshan Maharaj was promoted last summer to the team’s goaltending coach.

Maharaj, who is known as Sudsie, is now tasked with molding 23-year-old John Gibson into the Ducks’ franchise netminder.

As challenges go, the Trinidad-born Maharaj, who is of Indian descent, has faced worse.

Like when he worked with gang members in Toronto, his hometown.

Or when his car was firebombed in Sweden in what he believes was a racially motivated attack.

In the late 1980s, midway through a nomadic six-year tenure playing professionally in Sweden, Maharaj was visiting friends who had been harassed by a gang at a team event at a local community center.