Article: Filip Gustavsson Proved His Skeptics Wrong On Opening Night

[Tony Abbott]

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[Imyourhuckleberry]

I'd guess that Gustavsson plays game 2 in Toronto and Fleury plays game 3 in Montreal, primarily because Fleury grew up about an hour away from Montreal, but also because Gus Bus was great in game 1.

[Luke Sims]

Gosh, Blackhawk Scott Darling was crazy. Rip to the Carolina fans back in the day.

[Luke Sims]

Still have P.T.S.D from the 7-goal breakdown against the Rangers last year. Gus was elite tonight and he'll have to be.

[bisopher]

7 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

I'd guess that Gustavsson plays game 2 in Toronto and Fleury plays game 3 in Montreal, primarily because Fleury grew up about an hour away from Montreal, but also because Gus Bus was great in game 1.

Agreed that's the most likely scenario, for the reasons you state.  Gus deserves game 2 based on his shutout, Flower gets game 3 and the near-home-town aspect as well.

[bisopher]

1 minute ago, Luke Sims said:

Still have P.T.S.D from the 7-goal breakdown against the Rangers last year. Gus was elite tonight and he'll have to be.

Right.  A big difference from the 20 goals in 3 games start to last year.

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

One of the few moves I have not criticized from Guerin this year was the Gus Bus deal. I think by the end of this year it will look like one of the most prudent and team friendly contracts in the league. 

ALL ABOARD THE BUS🚌

[MrCheatachu]

1 hour ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

One of the few moves I have not criticized from Guerin this year was the Gus Bus deal. I think by the end of this year it will look like one of the most prudent and team friendly contracts in the league. 

ALL ABOARD THE BUS🚌

Considering that we traded for a 50% retained Fleury (for a 2nd round pick, which we didnt advance in the playoffs to result in the 1st round pick), then extended him which was the reason Mrs. Cambot angerly tweeted which lead to the Cambot/GusBus trade I'd say the Wild really got the better end of that stick.

I'll agree that Guerin looks pretty good right now on this one after stirring it up quite a bit to get there...

[MNCountryLife]

We can't expect Gus to stand on his head all season long.  It looked pretty clear last night that we had trouble exiting our D zone and even preventing the Panthers from coming right down our throats.  Kudos to Gus....Wow!  But it was clear last night that we missed Spurgeon and Dumba badly.  When Merrill is your best D-man it is cause for concern.... Let's hope our D does more than just rip the puck around the boards with a hope and prayer in game 2.  

[FredJohnson]

Get a good criminal defense attorney, Filip! You may be rung up on robbery charges. 😀

Great game!

[Will D. Ness]

Gus has been proving it for quite some time now.  A lot of skeptics and doubters really don't have a leg to stand on other than his lack of experience but none of that shows in his game.

[Wild4Ever]

Skeptics?

I don't see many of those. What I did see was a goalie in better shape and ready to play with that winning attitude. Different than the start of last year? No doubt. But after that bad 2 goalie start last year, the Wild warmed up and we got to watch competitive hockey. Some new fans jumped on the bandwagon but the real fans knew who was driving...the Gus Bus?

Skeptics? Maybe in your own mind. Good to see comments open again.

[mnfaninnc]

From the eye test, I didn't think it was quite so lopsided. Perhaps it was simply Goose2 making it look easy? What did impress me was his tendency to come out and cut down angles, also an indication that he was comfortable and on his game. 

I also didn't see a lot of panic in the Wild defensive game, and breakouts. I guess I just chalked them up to Opening Night speed bumps that will get ironed out in a few games. 

As for the challenge that he was given in the offseason, to me, he looked stronger, plenty flexible, plenty confident and on his angles. I would conclude after 1 game he was in better condition, but the conditioning usually shows up after a few games with fatigue. 

I also agree on Toronto Gustavsson and Montreal Fleury. That's just one of those things coaches usually do for longtime veteran players. Plus, don't most coaches usually reward a goalie for a shutout by giving him the next game? I believe that is the way Evason typically roles. 

[Quebec1648]

9 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

From the eye test, I didn't think it was quite so lopsided. Perhaps it was simply Goose2 making it look easy? What did impress me was his tendency to come out and cut down angles, also an indication that he was comfortable and on his game. 

I also didn't see a lot of panic in the Wild defensive game, and breakouts. I guess I just chalked them up to Opening Night speed bumps that will get ironed out in a few games. 

As for the challenge that he was given in the offseason, to me, he looked stronger, plenty flexible, plenty confident and on his angles. I would conclude after 1 game he was in better condition, but the conditioning usually shows up after a few games with fatigue. 

I also agree on Toronto Gustavsson and Montreal Fleury. That's just one of those things coaches usually do for longtime veteran players. Plus, don't most coaches usually reward a goalie for a shutout by giving him the next game? I believe that is the way Evason typically roles. 

I think the Gus bus was fantastic in game 1, but I have doubts about how the defenseman will perform on nights when the Gus Bus is not at his best. Faber and Brodin looked good, but the others are a question mark. 

[mnfaninnc]

3 hours ago, Quebec1648 said:

I think the Gus bus was fantastic in game 1, but I have doubts about how the defenseman will perform on nights when the Gus Bus is not at his best. Faber and Brodin looked good, but the others are a question mark. 

Like tonight where Goligoski is having an absolutely brutal game. Addison hasn't been particularly good either, but Goose2 has bailed him out.

[Tony Abbott]

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

Like tonight where Goligoski is having an absolutely brutal game. Addison hasn't been particularly good either, but Goose2 has bailed him out.

At worst, Addison was their third-best defenseman tonight. Goligoski, Middleton, and Merrill were gawd awful

[Up North Guy]

13 hours ago, Tony Abbott said:

At worst, Addison was their third-best defenseman tonight. Goligoski, Middleton, and Merrill were gawd awful

Absolutely agree. Also worth mentioning the forwards that had sub-par nights. Gucci was meh. Hartzy was ineffective even with the gift goal. Mojo was invisible. Moose was slow. Freddy was not the same after getting dinged. Dewey1 was good but Dewey2 was just ok. The team was not up for this game. It will be interesting to see what happens in Montreal. I don't see them fixing the defense on a road trip with so few options. I would love to see Lambos up. He had a very nice game for Iowa on Friday.

[Will D. Ness]

Brodin had a bad night (for him) as well.  Entire D corp sucked except for Faber who looked really good.

Addy got burned bad on the PP but played better.  I wouldn't call it good though but slight improvement.

[mnfaninnc]

On 10/14/2023 at 11:13 PM, Tony Abbott said:

At worst, Addison was their third-best defenseman tonight. Goligoski, Middleton, and Merrill were gawd awful

I can't say that I agree with this. If you look at the stats, yeah those 3 guys had the toughest night. But with the eye test, it looked to me as if Goligoski had by far the roughest night, and he left his partner (Middleton) high and dry pretty often. The Middleton-Merrill pairing on the PK wasn't very good either, and I wonder if that is because of lack of playing together at this time.

What I did notice was that Merrill, in 2 games, is not fast enough to be reliable anymore. Goligoski looked serviceable against FL, but he also was too slow and small vs. Toronto. 

I read Russo's take on the night, somehow, I got a free Athletic article. I noticed in the 3rd period that the Wild had switched up the pairings, and Russo confirmed that this was by design, not just recovering from a PK event. Mainly, Faber and Brodin were split up to help the other guys out. To me, after the 6th goal was scored, I believe that Goligoski was benched, and they went with 5 D after that.

Addy wasn't all bad. He did get in the way of opponents, and he did pin a couple up against the boards. But the PP where he got walked around by Nylander was tough to watch, following the same kind of play on Thursday night. 

I'm glad UNG had eyes on Iowa to report on Lambos. They got spanked twice by the Silvertips, and it looked like either the goalies struggled mightily, or the defense got rudely welcomed to the A.  

For me, I don't know what to do about Goligoski. It was obvious to me that he needed to retire before the season started. He could have still made that money in the front office with a lot more time with his family and a lot less travel. I think since he began the year on the roster, if he retires now, we are still on the hook for his cap (but I've been so off on the cap lately, perhaps this is not the case). Merrill is an easy send down, and this should happen very soon. 

I didn't hate the Middleton-Addison pairing either. Addison gave up a goal going up the ice and not hustling back when the game was pretty much out of reach and he was trying to create some offense. Hey, you've got to take risks during that time, he gets a pass there. Actually, I liked this pairing better than the Goligoski-Middleton pairing. Could we actually see:

• Middleton-Addison
• Lambos-Faber
• Brodin-Spurgeon

This makes a lot of sense to me.