Filip Gustavsson hasn’t lost the plot. He knows that when Bill Guiern re-signed Marc-Andre Fleury one final NHL season, the Wild’s goaltending plans became complicated.
Certainly, playing the Gustavsson/Fleury tandem for another season makes sense. Fleury is a future hall of famer who, at 39, showed he remains one of the NHL’s most athletic goalies; and while Gustavsson, 26, wasn’t as consistent as he was last season, he finished with three shutouts and his share of terrific starts, including a 24-save effort in a 3-1 victory Monday against the playoff-bound Kings in Los Angeles.
On the other hand, Minnesota needs to bolster its forward corps. Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy, the team’s top line for most of the season’s second half, accounted for 42 percent of the team’s goals in a season that finished short of the postseason.
With goalie prospect Jesper Wallstedt getting a pair of quality victories late this season, the Wild suddenly have a trade asset — and it’s likely Gustavsson, who finished this season 20-18-4 with a 3.06 goals-against average and .899 save percentage but was one of the NHL’s best two goaltenders in 2022-23, 22-9-7 with a 2.10 GAA and .931 save percentage.
On locker cleanout/exit interview day at Xcel Energy Center, Gustavsson met reporters and was asked pretty quickly if he expects to be back in 2024-25.
“We’ll see,” he said. “There is always a business side to hockey, too. I like it here and would love to be back next year and try to redeem what happened this year. We’ll see.”
Wallstedt and the Wild were overmatched in his NHL debut, a 7-0 loss at Dallas on Jan. 10, but in two starts on the Wild’s last road trip he went 2-0 with a shutout, 1.01 GAA and .962 save percentage in starts against non-playoff teams in Chicago and San Jose.
Fleury this week signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract extension with a no move clause to finish his career in Minnesota.
“I was very happy when Flower resigned to play another year,” Gustavsson said. “It’s been awesome having him as a teammate. I look forward to playing with him more.”
We’ll see.
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