Entering 2023-24, the Minnesota Wild were a trendy pick to miss the postseason despite the fact they’d made the playoffs in nine of the last 10 years.
That sounds irrational, but it was grounded in a simple belief that this team couldn’t hope to get the same quality of goaltending it did in 2022-23. Last season, only the Boston Bruins and New York Islanders posted a higher save percentage than the Wild — whose .919 mark was way above the NHL average (.904).
If Minnesota employed an established stud goaltender, like Ilya Sorokin or Igor Shesterkin, that number would’ve seemed repeatable. Unfortunately for the Wild, their crease for this season is owned by guys who are a little harder to count on.
That starts with Filip Gustavsson, who came to the team from the Ottawa Senators in July 2022 fresh off a season where he posted an .892 save percentage in 18 games.
His NHL track record was light, and while he had been solid in the AHL, his save percentage had never topped .915 at that level. He’d never even exceeded .919 in Sweden’s top league. There was simply no reason to believe he was on the verge of performing like an elite NHL goaltender prior to 2022-23 — but he did just that.
The Swede ranked third in the NHL in GSAA (+31.32) despite playing less than half of his team’s games.
Coming into this year, it felt safe to assume the 25-year-old would take a significant step back. On a per-game basis, only Linus Ullmark was better in 2022-23, and the volatility of goaltending statistics invites skepticism until a lengthy track record is established.
That step back may well be coming, but in Gustavsson’s 2023-24 debut, he couldn’t have made a more convincing argument that his arrival as an elite NHL netminder last season was no mirage. Gustavsson produced the best statistical performance of his career and did it against a Florida Panthers team that ranked sixth in the league in scoring last year — and made a run to the Stanley Cup Final.
Florida managed to put 41 shots on Gustavsson, and he turned away each and every one, including some close calls.
The standout effort was absolutely needed by Minnesota, as the Wild managed just 21 shots and the Panthers won the expected goals battle 3.84 to 1.75. Without Gustavsson, the team’s season-opening game on home ice might’ve been a complete disaster.
Based on what we understand about goaltenders, opinions on the 25-year-old shouldn’t change from a single game. But Gustavsson continues to build a case suggesting he’s one of the best the NHL has to offer, and that case got a tiny bit stronger on Thursday.
If the Wild are going to drive play at an average rate, like they did last season, top-shelf goaltending will be required to get the team where it wants to go. It was fair to doubt whether Gustavsson — and Marc-André Fleury, who turns 39 in November — could provide that entering 2023-24.
That doubt is still a reasonable one to hold onto, but Gustavsson has the power to extinguish it in the weeks to come. He certainly took a step in the right direction on Thursday, even as his teammates offered little support in front of him.
