ST. LOUIS \u2014 The ink is barely dry on Filip Gustavsson\u2019s extension, and even though his signature is legible and that $34 million over five years starting next season is guaranteed and legally bound, Gustavsson still has butterflies heading into Thursday\u2019s opener.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, when you make bank as a professional athlete and you\u2019re the last line of defense, all alone on an island as a goaltender, you want to justify every cent during one start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI let in two goals out of the first three shots in the last preseason game in Chicago, and I thought, \u2018This is going to be a horrible announcement the next day,\u2019\u201d Gustavsson told The Athletic with a hearty laugh after his 27-save masterpiece during the Minnesota Wild\u2019s season-opening, 5-0 pasting of the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center.<\/p>\n
This has been one exciting week for the Swedish netminder, and Thursday night, the Wild hopped aboard the Gus Bus and rode it to the finish line of an impressive victory. The Wild snapped the Blues\u2019 15-game home winning streak, dating to last February, behind great goaltending, great special teams (a power-play goal and 2 for 2 on the penalty kill), a six-point night from their top line of Kirill Kaprizov-Marco Rossi-Matt Boldy at five-on-five and two goals from Jordan Binnington-assassin Ryan Hartman.<\/p>\n
But in the second period, when the Blues pushed hard as they attempted to chase a 2-0 deficit, Gustavsson was as cool as a winter night in his hometown of Skellefte\u00e5. When Zeev Buium bailed on a check from Colton Parayko, there Gustavsson was moments later to save the day. When David Jiricek got dipsy-doodled at the blue line, there Gustavsson was to make the save.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what was key: There was rarely, if ever, a rebound. Every time the Wild got hemmed in their zone, Gustavsson swallowed the puck in his stomach or against the Wild crest on his chest and let his teammates get a breather and line change.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was great,\u201d Boldy said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we expect of him. He brings that calming presence, too. For him to step up big in these moments, it\u2019s huge for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twelve minutes into the period, the shots were 14-0. Yet the score remained 2-0 with the Wild ahead until Rossi drew a penalty, leading to Joel Eriksson Ek\u2019s power-play goal eight seconds into the power play.<\/p>\n
Yet, Gustavsson didn\u2019t seem overly impressed with his performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was OK,\u201d Gustavsson said. \u201cIt feels like the game was so fast out there. It\u2019s still like it hasn\u2019t slowed down in your brain yet. And I had some good bounces. Their goalie had some tough bounces today. The shots that hit me, they got blocked or (my teammates) covered for me. \u2026 We got a stoppage there, and it felt more controlled that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gustavsson has been with the Wild for three years. One was excellent. One was lousy. One was solid.<\/p>\n
Wild president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin bet that the middle one was the aberration and invested heavily in his No. 1 to the tune of an average of $6.8 million per season with $8 million and $8.5 million salaries the first two years of the deal in 2026-27 and 2027-28.<\/p>\n
The reality?<\/p>\n
Gustavsson gave the Wild a break on what should be deemed a team-friendly deal, considering where the goalie market is going and how few free-agent goalies would have been available for the Wild to sign next summer if Gustavsson entertained leaving.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and my agents obviously saw (Calgary\u2019s young goalie) Dustin Wolf signing $7.5 (million) by seven (years),\u201d Gustavsson told The Athletic. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t need that. It\u2019s good for the market to go up. I like that all the players are getting paid more and the business side of hockey is making more money. And six years from now, I\u2019ll be 33 and I can sign another deal, and maybe I can get a lot of money next time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gustavsson knows the grass isn\u2019t always greener elsewhere. The goalie, who strives to be in the Vezina Trophy conversation year after year and to lead the Wild to a Stanley Cup, loves Minnesota and loves playing for the Wild, in large part because of the defensive structure in front of him. In his mind, for a guy who made $2,000 a month when he signed his first contract in Sweden and who felt he could be back playing there if he floundered in Minnesota, $6.8 million annually is plenty of money.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s life-changing money,\u201d Gustavsson said, \u201cand you don\u2019t have to gamble with that type of money. Like, I live in a small town in Sweden. I\u2019m gonna move back there after my career, and I don\u2019t really need much more money than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plain and simple, though, Gustavsson really wanted to get the extension done before the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I still have to play good this season, but now I don\u2019t have to worry about it as much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gustavsson loved a lot of what he saw in front of him against the Blues.<\/p>\n
He loved the sacrifice of Marcus Foligno blocking a shot painfully with his right hand in the waning seconds of the first period, and he feels that type of example is tremendous to the youth movement the Wild have going on right now. Ten players age 24 and younger were in Thursday\u2019s lineup, including inexperienced players such as David Jiricek, Zeev Buium, Liam Ohgren and Hunter Haight, who was making his NHL debut.<\/p>\n
Gustavsson also loved that Hartman picked up where he left off in last year\u2019s playoffs with a couple of goals, including the winner, and 10 faceoff wins on 14 attempts. The Wild\u2019s top line was tremendous, especially in the race to retrieve pucks, and it paid off with a goal and assist from Rossi, a goal and two assists from Boldy and three assists from Kaprizov. And he loved that the Wild\u2019s penalty kill, which has been so doggone atrocious since the 2023 playoffs, started off 2 for 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe set the tone in training camp,\u201d he said. \u201cWe really try and focus on having quality in practices and to be ready for these first couple of games. That\u2019s just the standard we have, and that\u2019s why I think it works so good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t just the second period that Gustavsson looked locked in. In the first period, when Jiricek handed the puck to Robert Thomas for a point-blank try, Gustavsson outwaited the Blues star, and Thomas ran out of real estate and didn\u2019t get a shot off in time. Gustavsson also denied Jordan Kyrou twice, and Wild fans know Kyrou enjoys nothing more than lighting up the Wild.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he saw pucks well,\u201d coach John Hynes said. \u201cRebound control was good. I thought he was very good through traffic tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Gustavsson wasn\u2019t celebrating in the postgame locker room the way he was after scoring a \u201cGoalie Goal\u201d against the Blues one year ago. Two years ago, he was brilliant during a 41-save season-opening shutout win over the Florida Panthers. Two nights later, he gave up the hockey equivalent of a touchdown and an extra point during a 7-4 loss at Toronto.<\/p>\n
So Gustavsson, after flying home with the Wild after the game, will have a good practice Friday in advance of Saturday\u2019s home opener against Columbus. And he\u2019ll try to get locked in again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a bad second game against Toronto, so I hope I have a better second game (this time),\u201d Gustavsson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS \u2014 The ink is barely dry on Filip Gustavsson\u2019s extension, and even though his signature is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":292064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[3112,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-292063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-minnesota-wild","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115350161788560821","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}