ST. LOUIS – Marc-Andre Fleury, carrying his black Wild baseball cap backward, had a front-row seat to historical past Tuesday evening, however he was the one who planted the seed in Filip Gustavsson’s head within the first place.
Then, as if Fleury diagramed the play for his goalie associate himself, the St. Louis Blues’ Pavel Buchnevich cooperated absolutely with a wonderfully positioned 79-foot shot instantly towards the Wild brand on the heart of Gustavsson’s chest.
Gustavsson caught the puck along with his trapper for his twenty seventh save, dropped it in his blue crease, took intention and sailed a magnificence the size of the ice for a bull’s-eye — the ultimate objective in a 4-1 Wild win.
It was the primary goalie objective in group historical past and Gustavsson is the fifteenth goaltender in NHL common season historical past to attain a goalie objective.
“That was surprising,” goalie coach Freddy Chabot stated on the press elevator after the sport.
“That was superior,” basic supervisor Invoice Guerin stated. “You don’t see a goalie objective daily.”
“An influence-play objective,” identified assistant GM Michael Murray.
GOALIE GOAL! GOALIE GOAL! GOALIE GOAL! 🚨 pic.twitter.com/NS3CsKb9ge
— NHL (@NHL) October 16, 2024
With 34 seconds left within the Blues’ house opener and St. Louis attempting to kill a double minor, coach Drew Bannister referred to as timeout searching for a miracle along with his group down two.
Fleury had different plans.
“I referred to as a fast goalie assembly,” Fleury stated, laughing.
Gustavsson skated over to the bench and received some recommendation from the clever future Corridor of Famer.
“Flower appeared as much as the board and was like, ‘We’re up two targets. You need to most likely strive it for those who get the prospect. You’re capturing, proper?’” Gustavsson recalled. “I used to be like, ‘Yeah, possibly I ought to.’”
Gustavsson had by no means scored a objective at any stage of hockey. He’d by no means contemplate it with a one-goal lead as a result of if he missed, it could be an icing and an offensive-zone faceoff for the Blues.
“Up 2-nothing, I used to be like, ‘Yeah, if I get the prospect, I’ll strive it,’” Gustavsson stated.
After which he received his probability.
Gustavsson figures Buchnevich was capturing the puck instantly at him so he’d catch it, freeze it and provides the Blues a late faceoff. However as an alternative, Buchnevich “simply put it straight within the glove and I attempted and put it down as fast as I might,” Gustavsson stated. “It simply laid excellent there on the ice, and I simply attempt to shoot it as arduous as I might.”
As Fleury stated, “Textbook.”
Celebrating the primary goalie objective in @mnwild historical past! 🤩 pic.twitter.com/X5ciE7FTea
— NHL (@NHL) October 16, 2024
Chabot, the Wild’s goalie coach of 5 seasons, likes to do enjoyable issues along with his goaltenders in observe.
One of many coolest wanting is when he’ll have one goalie stand instantly in entrance of the opposite to set one ginormous display. Chabot will then whistle dead-accurate pictures to the left, then to the precise, then again to the left … over and time and again on both facet of the screening goalie so the one within the crease has to struggle to search out the puck.
However probably the most enjoyable drill he conducts is goalie targets.
Former Wild goalie Kaapo Kahkonen was a goalie objective machine in his native Finland. Present Wild prospect Jesper Wallstedt, a fellow Swede like Gustavsson, has scored goalie targets, too, together with with Iowa within the AHL.
“I anticipated that from Wally,” Chabot stated. “Not Gus.”
What shocked Chabot probably the most was that he has by no means seen Gustavsson in any of their practices shoot the puck as excessive as he did.
“I often complain about my curve not being the precise angle to get it that prime,” Gustavsson stated. “However I don’t know, further powers or one thing.”
Most cool, in line with ESPN, this was the third power-play objective by a goalie in NHL historical past (Evgeni Nabokov in 2002 and Martin Brodeur in 2013). He’s the second Swede to ever rating a goalie objective, in line with NHL Stats (Linus Ullmark in 2023).
Hilariously, Guerin walked into the locker room to congratulate Gustavsson, then requested Fleury if he had ever scored one. Fleury knew full effectively his former Penguins teammate knew he had not, then cracked up and threw a towel on the Wild boss.
After he scored, Gustavsson was mobbed by his teammates on the ice — Brock Faber, Jonas Brodin, Marcus Foligno, Yakov Trenin and Marat Khusnutdinov.
Jakub Lauko’s first Wild objective is a shorthanded magnificence. 2-0 #mnwild pic.twitter.com/gLS19TpTcs
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) October 16, 2024
Jakub Lauko, who scored the game-winning short-handed objective within the second interval for his first objective with the Wild, wished to hitch the pile from the bench. There have been solely 9 seconds left within the sport, however he figured it was in opposition to the principles and determined to remain put.
Fortunately for him, Gustavsson skated to the bench and did a fist-bump flyby along with his blocker. The primary individual he greeted was a smiling, proud Fleury.
“Props to him,” Lauko stated. “It’s fairly spectacular, and he deserves it. It could have been nicer at house, with a full barn, however you recognize it’s an unimaginable second. I’m simply comfortable for him.”
Gustavsson’s objective was the Wild’s fourth power-play objective of the season. He joked that he wished to assist push the facility play over 20 %, however he really pushed it to 30.8 %.
“Ought to most likely be within the energy play conferences now,” Gustavsson stated.
Wild coach John Hynes has seen a goalie objective earlier than. Whereas teaching Nashville, Pekka Rinne scored one in Chicago.
“It was one among my first couple video games in Nashville,” he recalled. “However it was virtually similar to Gus’s. It was sort of a six-on-five state of affairs and sort of dumped in on the goalie and he had time to have the ability to do it and you might inform each guys … have been going for it. Nice to see.”
With the Wild enjoying seven defensemen and never enjoying once more till in Columbus on Saturday, Kirill Kaprizov logged 27:59 of ice time — the second-most in his NHL profession. Based on ESPN, it was the sixth-most by a ahead who had no pictures in a sport since 2000-01.
However Kaprizov was terrific, having two stunning assists on targets by Ryan Hartman and Marco Rossi. He leads 2-0-2 Minnesota, which hasn’t trailed in any sport, with six factors.
Kaprizov has one objective, nevertheless, and volunteered that he’s tied in targets with the Wild’s No. 1 goalie: “Similar (variety of) targets like loads of guys.”
“It’s most likely not gonna be for lengthy,” Gustavsson stated.
The irony about Tuesday is earlier than the season, it’s believed the Wild had the Blues sport slated for Wallstedt’s season debut. However the Wild are inundated with accidents to Joel Eriksson Ek, Jared Spurgeon and Marcus Johansson, so Wallstedt needed to be despatched to Iowa to make room for callup Daemon Hunt. Plus, Gustavsson is enjoying so effectively, they want Wallstedt to get some practices and sport motion someplace and proper now it might probably’t be Minnesota.
The Wild wish to get Wallstedt extra video games within the NHL this season than the three he received final yr, however the secret is successful and if Gustavsson retains racking up victories, he ought to get the majority of the enjoying time.
If the Wild wish to get again into the playoffs this season, they want the “Gus Bus” to look and play just like the goalie of two years in the past who completed with the second-best save proportion and goals-against common within the NHL and never the one which floundered final season to a sub-.900 save proportion.
To this point in three begins, he’s 2-0-1 with a 1.66 goals-against common and .948 save proportion. He labored arduous this offseason, got here again to Minnesota in tip-top form and has improved upon his observe habits.
“I don’t assume I do something particular on the market,” he stated. “(I’m not) flashy. Clearly, I make some greater saves, however that’s often whenever you’re out of place. I simply attempt to be in the precise place more often than not and make boring saves. And I believe that’s been working excellent to this point.”
Good, like within the second interval after Lauko’s short-handed objective the place he preserved a 2-0 lead by sprawling throughout his crease to rob Jordan Kyrou.
“Clearly everyone knows on the finish of final yr (Gustavsson) wasn’t comfortable and nobody was proud of what had gone on,” Hynes stated. “He put some arduous work on this summer time and he’s come again in I believe the precise mindset and realized his classes from final yr and now he’s are available in and he’s enjoying actual strong and also you want that.
“Early within the yr typically it’s robust to win for those who don’t get sturdy goaltending as a result of the video games are a little bit bit scattered as everybody’s attempting to get used to the NHL tempo, there’s typically breakdowns, methods aren’t completely dialed in the place they must be so when you will get actually high quality goaltending early, it provides you the perfect probability to win.”
Goalie targets assist, too.
Gus making Wild historical past 👏 pic.twitter.com/lnjSeLQikN
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) October 16, 2024
(Picture: Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Photos)
