Article: Has Filip Gustavsson Reached His Limit As A Starter?

[Phillip Garrett]

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[Citizen Strife]

Their best 3 defensemen are hurt.  Gus has been a top 5-10 goalie all season.  Fleury has said he's done and won't do it over again.  Wall has to figure out his shit, or we're on the Gus Bus for the long haul.  Not the worst thing, depending on the price.

[FredJohnson]

Time to Wall it up??

[Thatoneguy]

9 hours ago, FredJohnson said:

Time to Wall it up??

He needs to learn how to stop the puck in the A first. Guys been a screen door all season. 

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

Bogosian is playing top line minutes and Phillip is wondering why Gus isn't playing lights out? That is like blaming snow fence for not holding back an avalanche. 

Even in what seemed like by the score to be a blowout, Gus kept Wild in the Vegas game until the last half of the third period. A game we had no business having a chance at with the way we were playing. 

Our goalie situation, while good this year, has deteriorated a little with the slumping of Wallstedt. Fleury is not coming back next year despite elevating his play this year and Wallstedt looks like he needs more time in the A. He has showed signs of bouncing back but yet to have a sustained comeback leaving the situation in limbo for next season. 

Because of the extension the Wall is going to be up here next year regardless of whether he bounces back or not. Hopefully he comes out from this offseason ready to go.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

Quote

With half a season left to play, he has already played 30 games, putting him on pace to play close to 60 games this season. That would be 15 more starts than he’s played in his NHL career. 

^^^^^above article

Gus had 103 starts in his career prior to this season, and had a season high of 43 starts in 1 season, which was last year. He had 37 starts the prior year. He played in 45 games last season, but did not have 45 starts. In 2.5 years with the Wild, Gustavsson has a .915 save% and 2.58 goals against avg.

 

Quote

Kirill Kaprizov continued to skate on his own Tuesday, joining fellow injured players Brock Faber, Jakub Lauko and Jared Spurgeon at TRIA an hour before the team’s scheduled practice. Jonas Brodin wasn’t there, working out off the ice. - The Athletic

None of these guys are expected to play Wednesday, but a few are getting close and had not been fully ruled out for that Edmonton game.

[mnfaninnc]

There is no big mystery here, and likely not much of a slip in play for the goaltender. At the bottom of the article, we uncover the obvious truth:

Quote

That said, I think Gustavsson’s play is simply a product of the Wild’s situation. Gustavsson doesn't have his usual support with Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, and Brock Faber out of the lineup.

This is, essentially, the article in a nutshell. It's not even the conclusion. But, I think we all need to face it, our goalies are a product of our defense. Goose is an average goalie who benefits by staying calm and letting the defense be the defense, he cleans up anything that gets by them. You can plug and play several goalies in a system like this.

Now, for the time being, Ferguson is hurt, The Wall is hurt, Vaj is holding down the fort in the A. There is no immediate help coming. 

I think we have a large sample size of what we have now. Last season, Goose was about league average, but, due to the defense being injured, he had a terrible year in our minds. This season he was lights out until the defensive injuries came again. Goose is not a bail you out type of 'tender, he is a good 'tender who requires a lot of defensive help. When he was lights out, he had to typically make 1 save from a bad angle and the defense cleaned up any rebounds. 

It also appears that Goose does not have what it takes to steal games when his defenders are hurt. This should directly affect Guerin's offer. He could, likely, stick in an average goalie, like Dubnyk class, and get similar performance out of him. This is a goalie friendly system. Goose can chase the money outside of the organization, but will likely get shelled by a team simply looking for a really good backstop with little defense to help. He's in a good place.

The Wall will be a good tandem with him. Goose can play 45-50 games and The Wall can take the rest. Why hasn't The Wall performed better this season? Well, they gave him the hard games and Fleury the easy ones when Goose was hurt. 

1 hour ago, TheGoosesAreLooses said:

Our goalie situation, while good this year, has deteriorated a little with the slumping of Wallstedt. Fleury is not coming back next year despite elevating his play this year and Wallstedt looks like he needs more time in the A.

I believe this to be the opposite. The Wall needs, NEEDS, N shots at him, not A shots. He should be started against offenses that rank below top 10 in the league. Don't start him with a tired team against Winnipeg, Dallas, Colorado, he'll get shelled. Let him get his acclimation process, shield him a bit and let him improve. But the main thing is that in the N, he'll experience moves he's never seen before. In the A, they don't really have that....maybe a couple of young guys. In the A he will not have a defense that helps much either.

14 hours ago, Citizen Strife said:

Their best 3 defensemen are hurt.  Gus has been a top 5-10 goalie all season.

This is what scares me. People thinking Goose is a top 5-10 goalie. He's not. His stats say he is, but it's the product of the system. This is why a huge extension should be avoided by Guerin because the money is going to the defenders. 

A great comparison of this is in the NFL. Look at how well Saquon Barkley did for the Giants. He was a league star. Then look at what he does for the Eagles, he was a game away from breaking the NFL rushing title. What's the difference? Eagles O-Line is way better. Barkley didn't suddenly become way more talented, no, he got to gain speed for 3 extra yards before contact. Barkley's extra production this season is a product of the system in Philly and health luck.

There have been a lot of huge goalie signings this past year, Shesterkin being the king. Goose is not in this category. Goose is down more towards the Saros' of the world, the Demkos making $5m. Even Ville Husso is at less. This is around 15th in salaries...starting goalie average. Agents can complain all they want about his numbers, but it is a systemic premium, not a goaltender premium that makes these numbers work. In the Wild system a goalie should be .1-.15 better assuming the health of the defenders. 

Now, against St. Louis, I thought Goose's movements were slow. Same thing with Colorado. I'm assuming here that Goose was not completely healthy in the form of flu/cold stuff he was dealing with. He normally does not look like that and I'm betting the lighter week this week will help. Of course, we'd also like to acknowledge goalies should perform to their averages, but goalies are hot and cold too. Sometimes it looks like a beach ball, other times it looks like a marble. That's just the way it goes.

[Patrick]

Um...our top THREE defenseman are out and the goalie's play has slipped. This is a ridiculous article. The only legitimate point is workload.

[raithis]

26 minutes ago, Patrick said:

Um...our top THREE defenseman are out and the goalie's play has slipped. This is a ridiculous article. The only legitimate point is workload.

Like mnfaninnc said, Gus's successful is largely based on our defensive structure.  Last year he looked horrible because our defensive structure wasn't as good and we had a number of injuries.  This year our defensive structure is improved, but now we have enough injuries that add up and put cracks in the wall.  Most goalies are going to look good here.  They are also not going to look very good unless they are the kind of elite goalies that steal games largely by themselves.

I'm not saying Gus is bad.  I'm just saying that his stats are a product of much more than his play alone, and if he ends up wanting a ton of money to re-sign, we should probably move on to Wallstedt. 

Wallstedt and Gus play very similar and he is going to look a lot better behind our defense (the non-injured version) than he does in the AHL.  Is Wallstedt ready to be a starter now?  No, certainly not.  But next year playing as backup he is probably going to look very similar to Gus stats-wise (maybe not in games played).  If that's the case, Wallstedt could maybe take the reins if we decide to move Gus at the trade deadline (if he wants a lot to re-sign). 

Obviously having both for a few years would be better since the consistency of having two goalies that are similar would be good for the defense, but we shouldn't get so enamored with Gus's stats and make him out to be more than he really is.  I also don't want to tie up a ton of cap space re-signing Gus (if he wants a lot to sign) if Wallstedt gives us the same thing for cheaper.

[Lern2spell]

2 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

People thinking Goose is a top 5-10 goalie. He's not. His stats say he is, but it's a product of the system

But what? If it wasn't for a handful of blowouts (some of which he contributed to, and some where he had no help whatsoever) when Gus was in net, he'd still be in Vezina conversations. Most of his blowouts were the product of the system.

I'm tired of people saying Gus isn't as good as his stats, so the Wild should be careful, and then turnaround and say Wallstedt isn't as bad as his stats and therefore should be on the roster next year...enough already.

[mnfaninnc]

21 minutes ago, Lern2spell said:

But what? If it wasn't for a handful of blowouts (some of which he contributed to, and some where he had no help whatsoever) when Gus was in net, he'd still be in Vezina conversations. Most of his blowouts were the product of the system.

I'm tired of people saying Gus isn't as good as his stats, so the Wild should be careful, and then turnaround and say Wallstedt isn't as bad as his stats and therefore should be on the roster next year...enough already.

The Wall is still a prospect. He doesn't have enough N experience. Goose had 2 years of part-time play before he came here to be a full-time backup. This is where The Wall is. Goose had 9 starts in his 1st season, The Wall, 3. 18 starts in his 2nd season to, so far The Wall's 2. 

The Wall has faced N shots and this is where he is getting beat, with increased velocity and moves they don't have in the A. He will remember the moves here once he sees them. 

When we got Goose, he was still a rookie. Then, he shined behind a defensive front that could defend. What was the difference? Well, let's take a look at Cam Talbot. In a Wild sweater, his sv% was about .915. In Ottawa, his sv% was .898. Did he just forget to pack his game that season? Talbot was better with the Rangers, similar with the Kings and at .903 this year with the Red Wings.

Why bring Talbot into the conversation? Because he's a veteran goalie with a large sample size and you can see what he does behind a defense interested in defending and one that isn't. .17 sv% is the difference. I don't think anyone would accuse Talbot of being an elite 'tender, but a younger guy like Goose puts up similar numbers, perhaps .1 better than Talbot. 

The Wall played well last season against his final 2 opponents. He had a real team ahead of him, not a patchwork squad like in Dallas where half the team in front of him had the flu. This season he got jerked around and his head got messed up when sent down immediately. Now he's an emergency call up (and injured). There's excuses and there's reasons. The Wall has reasons, especially that he is under 25 when 95% of goalies make a difference in the N. 

If you don't want to admit that Goose just isn't that good, then fine, live in fantasy land, but 3 seasons of a decent sample size show you that when the defense is stellar in front of him, he's very good, when it's not he's not so good. To be elite, you have to do it no matter who's in front of you. You have to steal games when the chips are down. Goose has done a few, but not enough to be considered a more than a hot night.

I'm not saying don't re-sign him here either. I'm saying he's not in the same league as the $8m goalies. He's in the league with the $5m goalies. I think going forward with the D coming in, we should expect a sv% between .92-.93. 

Equally on this topic, we can talk about MAF. His stats say he's above average at .910 this season, but the reality is that he's been behind stellar D for most of it. The last 2 starts he's had, though, he's been spectacular, pretty much stealing games in both starts. He didn't have the D ahead of him those 2 games, and with that D he is at best an average 'tender, likely a top 1/3rd back up. His last 2 starts, though, showed some leadership in the position, I'm hoping it's something that Goose can learn from. 

Whoever's in net tonight has got to be ready to steal a game.

[Lern2spell]

39 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

If you don't want to admit that Goose just isn't that good, then fine, live in fantasy land

Fantasy Land is believing Wallstedt has earned or shown anything to warrant a #2 spot on a contending team!

Regardless of what I think of Gus, the fact is, next year the Wild only have two goaltenders on roster. One has a more than adequate NHL body of work, the other has no established NHL body or work. If next season, Gus lives in your world and regresses to league average, and Wallstedt brings his AHL game to the big club, the Wild will have wasted a year of contention. Do the Wild want to take that gamble? The only logical thing to do would be to get a legit #2 that can win you games, rather than simply gain N shots and N game experience, as you put it. The time for Wallstedt to come get NHL experience was the last couple of seasons, including this one, not next year when they are expected to be a true contender. As much as I love Fleury, Guerin mucked that up by re-signing him...

And for the record, I am a huge Wallstedt fan. I hope to hell he figures it out soon, and believe he will be a good NHL goaltender some day. But he isn't at the present time. And I want more than anything for the Wild to go on a couple of good playoffs runs in the next few years. It is a shame he didn't get 25-30 NHL games the past few seasons, because at those times he was putting up numbers that warranted a call up. Guerin wanted him to bake in the minors, he just let him bake too long, to the point I wouldn't blame Wallstedt for wanting to look at a change of scenery...

 

[Pewterschmidt]

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

The Wall played well last season against his final 2 opponents. He had a real team ahead of him, not a patchwork squad like in Dallas where half the team in front of him had the flu. This season he got jerked around and his head got messed up when sent down immediately. Now he's an emergency call up (and injured). There's excuses and there's reasons. The Wall has reasons, especially that he is under 25 when 95% of goalies make a difference in the N. 

Those are all excuses.  Expecially annoying after hearing since his draft that he was the second coming of Patrick Roy.  So far he's been a train wreck.

Are you writing him off P-Sandels?  No, I'm just calling a spade a spade here.

The good news, he's very young and the voodoo that is goalie mental toughness takes time and experience.  Hopefully Wall-E has the mental makeup to build mental toughness thru his experiences.  Let's chalk this season up to Wall-E's development/growth.

[Pewterschmidt]

27 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Those are all excuses.  Expecially annoying after hearing since his draft that he was the second coming of Patrick Roy.  So far he's been a train wreck.

Are you writing him off P-Sandels?  No, I'm just calling a spade a spade here.

The good news, he's very young and the voodoo that is goalie mental toughness takes time and experience.  Hopefully Wall-E has the mental makeup to build mental toughness thru his experiences.  Let's chalk this season up to Wall-E's development/growth.

A franchise goalie (as Wall-E was billed) finds a way to overcome all the obstacles and steals games.  He's done to opposite so far.  Again he's young so there's time for him to figure it out.  Let's hope he spends the summer training and working with whoever is the resident goalie whisperer getting his mental poop in a group...so we're not talking about how he got his feelings hurt and is playing like crap.  This is professional ice hockey people played by men who'd kill their *insert relative here* for the privilege to play an NHL shift!

[Pewterschmidt]

Do you think Stankoven would pout because he didn’t get what he was promised?  No he’d go out, beat all the odds, and be a year one contributor on a solid Dallas team

 lets go Wall-E!!!

#triple post

[mnfaninnc]

17 hours ago, Lern2spell said:

As much as I love Fleury, Guerin mucked that up by re-signing him...

We agree on this point.

17 hours ago, Lern2spell said:

Regardless of what I think of Gus, the fact is, next year the Wild only have two goaltenders on roster. One has a more than adequate NHL body of work, the other has no established NHL body or work.

This season, Fleury starts have been largely shielded. Do you not think that shielding The Wall will produce a similar outcome? The thing here is that as Fleury's trajectory goes down, The Walls goes up.

17 hours ago, Lern2spell said:

If next season, Gus lives in your world and regresses to league average, and Wallstedt brings his AHL game to the big club, the Wild will have wasted a year of contention. Do the Wild want to take that gamble?

I'm assuming that you are referring to my theory that Goose may actually be an every other year goalie. Yes, I would be in favor of The Wall bringing his game to the big club. At some point, you have to give the young goalie experience. Personally, I believe The Wall will have a short learning curve and be ready come playoff time. 

The same, here, can be said of Yurov, Buium, Jiricek and Ohgren. You will see mistakes early on, but they will learn from them and, I believe, they will be ready to explode come playoff time. They may actually, again, go in as a lower seed, but they'll be far more equipped to make a deeper run, much like Florida did 2 years ago and LA did during their really good years. 

17 hours ago, Lern2spell said:

The only logical thing to do would be to get a legit #2 that can win you games, rather than simply gain N shots and N game experience, as you put it. The time for Wallstedt to come get NHL experience was the last couple of seasons, including this one, not next year when they are expected to be a true contender.

I would use it as a learning experience, but more shelter him with lower teams the 1st half of the year. Where The Wall gets tossed into the deep end is with the annual injury that Goose has and The Wall has to play. I agree with you that The Wall should have gotten more games these 2 seasons, but you can't keep kicking the can down the road. The other thought is that almost all goalies make an impact starting at 25. Recently we have seen some come up earlier, but I believe Guerin has that age buried in his mind. 23 & 24 is when they get their feet wet. The Wall is still ahead of schedule if he does it next season. It's not optimal for a regular season contender seeding, but I don't see us being a #2 team in the division next season just yet.

18 hours ago, Lern2spell said:

And for the record, I am a huge Wallstedt fan. I hope to hell he figures it out soon, and believe he will be a good NHL goaltender some day. But he isn't at the present time.

I think a lot of times we use the snapshot approach instead of the long game of potential approach. Potential simply means here that there will be a lot of expected improvement. I think a real good example of this was seeing Askarov in San Jose the other night. While he wanders more than The Wall will, Askarov played quite well, but still had a few iffy moments that he could get away with in the A, but not the N. We have seen some of that in the 5 games The Wall has played, but he has to play those games and learn. 

Goose had 27 appearances before coming to the Wild. He then had 40 appearances + playoffs the following year and did quite well. We will need to see this from The Wall too, but I think his ceiling is higher than Goose's. But, taking the snapshot approach, we see that The Wall will be similar to Fleury and Goose is currently better. 

Now, back to my original point, I did not get to watch last night's game. I see the score at 5-3, no ENG. I have no idea how Goose played and I'm assuming it was Goose in net. Was he able to steal this game with the top 3 defenders out? Once again the Wild were able to stay with a contender through 2 periods but simply couldn't get it done in the 3rd. I'm sure it was a good effort, but sometimes you're just outmanned, and the only equalizer can be a goalie who stands on his head. .861 was the sv% and I assume Goose looked better than that last night.

[mnfaninnc]

18 hours ago, Pewterschmidt said:

Those are all excuses.  Expecially annoying after hearing since his draft that he was the second coming of Patrick Roy.  So far he's been a train wreck.

I would argue it was the best goalie prospect since Carey Price, but looking at both stats of the goalies, both goalies look like they played heavy volume minutes at around 20 years old. 

I wouldn't call the his time up here a train wreck, I think in Winnipeg this year, and in Dallas last year, he was set up to fail. I think he played well vs. Vegas this year and the last 2 outings against low N competition last season. 

Looking at The Wall's stat lines, he really hasn't been this bad since '15-16 against 16 year olds. So, yes, it's been a down year for him so far, and I'd also chalk it up to experience. 

To be fair with the statistical comparison, it also appears that the Canadiens under Roy were a far superior team than the one Price played behind. But, yes, both of them would be part of the 5% of goalies that didn't have to wait until 25. The Wall also has a long history of playing above his age. He should have been up here more this season. He really needed it.

[mnfaninnc]

17 hours ago, Pewterschmidt said:

so we're not talking about how he got his feelings hurt and is playing like crap.  This is professional ice hockey people played by men who'd kill their *insert relative here* for the privilege to play an NHL shift!

Yes, but P-Sandal, when you were 20, were you half way across the planet pretty much alone when someone pulled the rug out from your feet? These guys aren't robots, they're human. I assume he'll grow from the experience, but it's his first failure in 8 years. Let's hope he doesn't go full Matt Hackett on us!

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

14 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

Now, back to my original point, I did not get to watch last night's game. I see the score at 5-3, no ENG. I have no idea how Goose played and I'm assuming it was Goose in net. Was he able to steal this game with the top 3 defenders out? Once again the Wild were able to stay with a contender through 2 periods but simply couldn't get it done in the 3rd. I'm sure it was a good effort, but sometimes you're just outmanned, and the only equalizer can be a goalie who stands on his head. .861 was the sv% and I assume Goose looked better than that last night.

Goose played well throughout. Goal number 3 was a bad one but he was also crashed into the net by a tripped Nurse. The rest were absolute cannons from in close by some of the best shooters in the league. One was a slot tip on a long range slapper that he had no time to react to. 

Quick one timers and redirects are not on the goalie. Despite what you were saying earlier, a good goalie can steal games but a good goalie with pylons out front is going to get shelled. Our number one pairing had Merrill on it FFS. 2 number seven defensemen from another team playing in our core in McDermmot and Bogosian. Hellebuyck would have gotten shelled standing behind that.

[mnfaninnc]

This is why the stat lines can be misleading. It's also why I trust the eye test way more than the stat lines.