After securing the future of the team’s offense earlier this week, Wild general manager Bill Guerin wrapped camp by ensuring the puck stays out of his team’s net.

Minnesota agreed to a five-year contract extension with mainstay goaltender Filip Gustavsson on Saturday, locking up the 27-year-old with an average annual salary of $6.8 million per season. Gustavsson, who appeared in 58 games for the Wild last season, was entering the final year of a contract which paid him $3.75 million annually.

Originally picked by the Penguins in the second round of the 2016 NHL Draft, Gustavsson cut his teeth in the top Swedish pro league. Pittsburgh traded him to the Senators in 2018 and he made his NHL debut for Ottawa in 2020.

Filip Gustavsson #32 of the Minnesota Wild looks on prior to the start of the game against the Vegas Golden Knights during Game Three of the First Round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Xcel Energy Center on April 24, 2025 in St Paul, Minnesota. The Wild defeated the Golden Knights 5-2. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images)

Guerin acquired Gustavsson in a trade in July 2022, when the Wild shipped goalie Cam Talbot to the Senators. Gustavsson has been part of a goalie tandem with veteran Marc-Andre Fleury for the past three years, but with Fleury retired, Gustavsson is Minnesota’s clear number one goalie heading into this season, with Jesper Wallstedt backing him up.

Now a veteran, Gustavsson said maintaining the same style and habits has been important as he’s progressed in the NHL

“You feel like consistency is key,” Gustavsson said. “You have to be consistent throughout your whole career as, close as you can, and I feel like it comes with the older you get too.”

Last season with the Wild, he posted a 31-19-6 record with five shutouts. He had a 2.56 goals-against average and a .914 saves percentage, and started all six of Minnesota’s playoff games. In addition, Gustavsson was the top goalie for Team Sweden in last winter’s 4 Nations Face-Off and is expected to compete for the same role for Sweden in the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

The Wild open their 2025-26 regular season on Thursday in St. Louis with a 7 p.m. CT game versus the Blues.

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Police believe a Ramsey County sheriff’s office squad car was hit by a bullet during an unrelated traffic stop Friday night in St. Paul.

During the 8:40 p.m. stop in the 1600 block of Maryland Avenue East, St. Paul police officers were assisting deputies when they heard gunfire, according to Nikki Muehlhausen, a St. Paul Police Department public information officer.

Police found a man with a single gunshot wound to his armpit in a nearby parking lot. He was taken to Regions Hospital with a gunshot wound believed to be non-life threatening and underwent surgery.

The shooter is believed to have fled the scene in a vehicle and an active search is underway.

“While it is very early into the investigation, it is believed that a Ramsey County squad was hit by a round. No RCSO deputies or SPPD officers were injured,” Muehlhausen said. “Right now, investigators do not believe the traffic stop is related to the shooting.”

 

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Amy Lindgren

In last week’s column I promoted the idea of stretching out a Bachelor’s degree beyond four years, to provide more time for internships or other “add-on” college experiences. My thinking, born of my own college tenure, is that the extra year or two won’t harm one’s career path nearly as much as the extra experiences will help.

So now let’s turn to internships. These can be excellent remedies for closing an experience gap for college students. Since college coursework is often theoretical in nature, internships can add the missing practical component that relates more closely to the workplace.

While extra years in college might not appeal to everyone, the benefit of extra internships is hard to overstate. However a student manages to fit them in, with internships it’s a case of the-more-the-merrier.

That could mean different internships each summer, or internships each school year, or even multiple internships at one time. If that sounds a little overboard, consider the benefits a directed work/learning experience can provide: Hands-on practice in a chosen field; the opportunity to explore different career paths; mentorship from an industry professional; potential income; work products to demonstrate in later interviews; networking contacts who could turn into colleagues; work references; school credit … it’s almost too many to list.

With so much to gain from a single internship, who wouldn’t want two or three or more? Here are some basics to understand if you’re going to pursue internships during college.

• 1. How to find an internship. For enrolled college students, it’s logical to start with your institution’s career department. This is often the first stop for outside organizations wishing to promote the internships they offer. If you’ve aligned yourself with a specific course of study, your department chair is also a likely resource.

For sources outside the college, check online internship boards and professional associations in your discipline, or consider contacting companies directly to ask if they take interns.

(To aid the search, remember that internships can go by different names, including externship, practicum and applied learning experience.)

• 2. How to structure an internship. Depending on the situation, the internship may already be structured, in which case you’ll need to confirm that the logistics will work for you. In more flexible situations, you might be choosing which days or how many hours to intern, or whether to pursue the internship on-site or remotely.

To help with these decisions, remember that networking is one of the benefits of the process — which is easier to do on-site. Hands-on learning with someone nearby for assistance is another reason to lean away from remote options when possible. In these cases, you may find that one or two full days each week works better than several half-days, in terms of commuting less.

• 3. How to afford an internship. There’s no doubt that being paid is preferable to volunteering — not to mention your budget may not accommodate training without a wage.

That said, if you can manage with a stipend, low wages, or no wages, you may find a broader range of opportunities. This will be especially true of internships you initiate by directly contacting companies of interest to you.

The truth is, internships can be costly for employers in terms of mentorship and other resources. While some states require payment, not every employer will be able to add a wage to the mix as well.

If you do go the no-pay route, a shorter, more intense burst of learning may be easier on your budget. Conversely, you might opt for just a few hours a week for a longer period, balanced by another internship or job with a paycheck attached.

• 4. How to ensure learning. Learning contracts are helpful here. Typically, they’ll state what the organization is committing to teach you while also outlining your responsibilities as the learner (for example, be punctual, dress appropriately, keep a learning log).

• 5. How to benefit from the internship. Of course, doing your best is the primary way to benefit from any learning experience. But internships are also great for providing work samples, portfolio pieces, résumé and LinkedIn entries, letters of recommendation and, sometimes, the gold standard: a job offer post-graduation.

The key to reaping these rewards is to keep them front of mind during and after each learning experience. If you keep great notes, introduce yourself to colleagues, and stay in touch after you leave, it won’t be long before you have both experience and a networking base envied by your “elders” in the field — exactly what you need to launch your career.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

The United States is known for its lovely national parks. But Canada – that place is like one big park. Nearly half of that huge country is covered by forest, most of it publicly owned and lots available for exploring.

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Folks who want to experience Canada’s wild should beeline to one of its famed preserves. And this month, National Geographic released a handy list of “10 national parks in Canada you need to visit,” with details on each place’s attractions and best seasons.

The “protection of natural spaces across the country is as Canadian as mounted police and maple syrup,” writes the magazine’s Heather Greenwood Davis. “All 10 provinces and three territories are represented within the National Park System. In total, there are 37 national parks, 11 national park preserves and 168 national historic sites.”

That all can feel overwhelming, Davis adds, but these “10 distinct parks are the perfect starter list to explore the world’s second-largest country.”

National Geographic’s essential national parks in Canada

1 Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia

2 Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland

3 Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve, Quebec

4 Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario

5 Rouge National Urban Park, Ontario

6 Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan

7 Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site, Alberta

8 Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, British Columbia

9 Gwaii Haanas, British Columbia

10 Kluane National Park and Reserve, the Yukon

Source: nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/top-canada-national-parks