It has been over 16 months since Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin rocked the hockey world by trading veteran goaltender Cam Talbot for unproven rookie Filip Gustavsson, and to say that it has been a rollercoaster since then would be an understatement. Remember, Gustavsson had played just 27 total NHL games when Guerin brought him in and the immediate response was sheer panic. It was unknown what a youngster would bring to a team that was expected to make the playoffs, but that slowly turned into admiration as after a very slow start, Gustavsson was able to turn things around and produce Vezina-caliber numbers for most of the 2022-23 season.
With a new contract in hand, Gustavsson came into this season expected to pick up right where he left off and assume the mantle of starting goaltender. That did not happen. Aside from the very first game of the season where he looked unbeatable, he was one of the worst goalies in the league and suddenly that new three-year contract looked like a big mistake.
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Then the Global Series in Sweden happened. Gustavsson’s numbers have been phenomenal lately and a lot of the praise goes to the coaching change that has lit a spark under the rest of the Wild, but I would argue that Gustavsson has been back since he played on Nov. 18 against the Detroit Red Wings in his home country. Let’s take a look at the numbers and see just how drastic the change has been.
Gustavsson’s First 8 Games
There was no question that Gustavsson rolled into the 2023-24 season with the expectation of becoming the number one goalie over his mentor Marc-Andre Fleury after signing a new three-year extension worth an average annual value of $3.75 million. That is not what happened at all. Both Gustavsson and Fleury had such a horrific start to the season that it will likely take months of playing their best hockey just to bring their statistics back to average.
Gustavsson started the season on a high with a 41-save shutout over the Florida Panthers but plummeted head-first off a cliff immediately after that. Including that shutout performance, in his first eight games of the 2023-24 season, he produced a .872 save percentage (SV%) and a 4.64 goals-against average (GAA) putting him firmly at the bottom of the league for goalies that played more than three games over that period. The team in front of him was not helping, but his goals saved above expected (GSAx) was minus-8.81, meaning he was playing well below league average.
Where it really fell apart for Gustavsson was that he was unable to make the kind of save that can kickstart a comeback, kill a penalty, or even just keep his team in the game. He had a paltry .784 high-danger save percentage (HDSV%) meaning that as the team was allowing more high-danger chances, Gustavsson was allowing more of them to go in. There were 42 goalies in the NHL with a better HDSV% than him. On top of that, he had a .833 SV% on the penalty kill, one of the reasons it was the worst penalty kill in the league.
Sweden Flipped That Switch
There is nothing like a good visit home. It can rejuvenate you, reinvigorate you, and apparently turn you back into an elite goaltender. Gustavsson got to play the Nov. 18 Global Series game against the Red Wings in his home country with a bunch of his family watching who would never normally be able to. The Wild lost that game, but Gustavsson was a completely different goalie. He had a .968 SV%, a 0.93 GAA, perfect on high-danger chances and a positive GSAx for the first time since the season opener. The Wild only lost because the shootout is a gimmicky way to end a game.
That trip home rebuilt the Gustavsson that Wild fans got to know last season as a potential competitor for the phenom prospect that is Jesper Wallstedt, and in his last six games, he has a .931 SV% and a 1.82 GAA which puts him in the top eight goalies in the entire league over that span. His HDSV% has jumped to .844, also top ten, and perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle: his penalty kill SV% has been .927.
Gustavsson has been there when the team needed him, he has been able to make that dramatic, game-saving windmill glove save, or the cross-crease toe save that he just didn’t seem capable of in his earlier games. His GSAx is now just minus-3.86, meaning he has been a positive 4.95 in just six games, well above just average goaltending. This is the goalie that the Wild thought they had found last season, and now that he has his confidence back we know from last season that the sky’s the limit for the 25-year-old.
Number One Moving Forward
The Wild are in critical status now as their horrendous start has given them a massive hill to climb if they want to be part of the postseason. They have strung together a series of four wins to get them back on track, but now they need to settle into a groove and start pumping the wins out and gaining back some ground in the points race. They are sitting five points out of the last wild card spot in the Western Conference, and eight points back of third in Central Division. It’s time to ride the hot hand that is Gustavsson and hand him the mantle of starting goaltender.
Absolutely no offense is meant to Fleury, he is a fantastic human and one of the greatest goaltenders to ever play the game, but his style produces an all-or-nothing sort of mentality. He makes the massive saves that stretch his highlight reel, but can let in some deflating ones as well; yes, he has also seen a resurgence since the coaching change, but Gustavsson has given a large enough body of very strong play to earn him a large majority of the starts moving forward.
