Danny Wild-Imagn Images
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
Rather than get too worried about the fact that scoring is on the rise again early in the new NHL season, Filip Gustavsson elected to get in on the fun with a tally of his own to seal the Minnesota Wild’s 4-1 road win over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night.
Since it was an empty-netter, it doesn’t count against any of his fellow members of the goalie fraternity, at least.
Through his first three starts, Gustavsson is dialled in at both ends of the ice. He has surrendered just five goals, giving him a 1.66 goals-against average and .948 save percentage.
Connor Hellebuyck, the 2024 Vezina winner, has also been nails in the early going, giving up just two goals in his first three starts. But many other established stoppers have struggled, including both 2024 Stanley Cup finalists. Sergei Bobrovsky’s save percentage through three games is .894, while Stuart Skinner’s is .845.
It’s not unexpected at this time of year when coaches are still working to implement their systems, and many players are adjusting to new roles and new teams.
But even though average shots per game are down from 30.1 to 28.8 through Tuesday’s games, per hockey-reference.com, the NHL’s average save percentage is taking an early beating. After Tuesday’s games, it was sitting at .899 — and the NHL hasn’t had a full season below .900 since 1995-96 (.898).
“I do think maybe the game is a little bit more open now, so the goalies face more quality chances at times,” said Hockey Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist in a recent interview.
That’s the enhanced skill level of NHL shooters that we keep hearing about, especially the Gen Z players like Connor McDavid, Connor Bedard and Jack Hughes that the league put in the spotlight in its latest ad.
But the older guard is not going away quietly. The Gen Z era starts at McDavid’s 1997 birth year, but some of the hottest point producers early this season have been Millennials in their 30s: Mark Stone (1992), Evgeni Malkin (1986) and Anze Kopitar (1987)
Though a heart condition, recurrent pericarditis, forced Lundqvist to leave the ice just a few years back, the work environment for NHL goalies has changed dramatically since his peak seasons.
Lundqvist didn’t leave Sweden to play his first NHL game until he was 23. But in 15 seasons, he climbed to 10th overall in games (887) and minutes (51,816:51) played, per NHL Records. If today’s goalie trends persist, we may never see numbers like that again.
Early in his career, Lundqvist appeared in at least 70 games in four straight seasons. Currently, Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators is the league’s biggest workhorse, with 67, 64 and 64 games played over the last three seasons.
At 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, Saros is also one of the smallest starters currently in the league. And while large goalies are all the rage in today’s NHL, Lundqvist thinks smaller-framed keepers may have a certain advantage in their physically demanding position.
“The taller guys — that’s usually heavier bodies, more stress on the joints,” he said. “With the bigger guys, sometimes they create more stress on the joints than the smaller goalies. I was average size when I played. But now, 6-1 would have been one of the smaller guys. We’ve seen a lot of change in that as well.”
On Tuesday, Saros gave up six goals on 34 shots to the Seattle Kraken. It’s only two games, but his save percentage for the year now sits at .855.
Today’s goalies are better rested than when Lundqvist was ruling the roost and earning regular goalie-of-the-year consideration.
His Vezina win came in 2011-12 when he played a light-for-him 62 games.
“It’s not only a number: ‘OK, he needs to play 55 games or 60 games,’ ” he said. “You have to look at ‘How is the team playing defensively? How heavy is each game?’ That was part of the decision-making, my last five, six years.”
While Lundqvist was a butterfly goaltender, he played a unique style — deep in his net, guarding the lower portion with a wide stance and sharp lateral movements.
Today, most goalies try to cut down angles by playing closer to the top of their creases. But they still spend a lot of time on their knees, especially when the puck gets close to the net.
“You have to manage that,” Lundqvist said. “If you go down 500 times in a practice, of course, you’re going to create stress on your knees and hips. Over time, over a 10-year span, that’s going to create some issues. So maybe it helps if we stand up a little bit more in practice — save your knees?”
That being said, today’s goalies enjoy advantages that their predecessors did not.
“The development on the equipment side has been so good over the last 10 to 15 years,” Lundqvist said. “It allows players and goalies to play this style, right? Without that development, it would have been very hard.”
As they settle into the new season, most of the top goalies should soon settle in and start playing closer to their usual standard. It remains to be seen whether they can buck the trend as a group and stop the save-percentage slide.
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