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  • Filip Gustavsson Proved His Skeptics Wrong On Opening Night


    Image courtesy of Nick Wosika-USA TODAY Sports
    Tony Abbott

    Just two months ago, Filip Gustavsson and the cap-strapped Minnesota Wild were struggling to come to an agreement. Gustavsson was looking for his fair share after a breakout season, while the Wild were trying to make a new deal fit on their tight budget. During that standoff, you could hear every reason imaginable to discredit a performance that propelled Minnesota into the playoffs.

    He only started 61 games over his career!
    He's a system goalie. Look at his defense!
    The Ottawa Senators didn't want him!
    He slowed down in the playoffs!
    Wonder what the Wild could get for him in a trade?
    He wasn't the Wild's No. 1 option!

    That's all standard stuff for most any player asking to get paid. Still, it reflected a somewhat valid concern. What if this guy turns into a pumpkin? Well, last night was midnight. All the conditions were right on Opening Night to expose Gustavsson as a fraud.

    The Stanley Cup runner-up Florida Panthers were in town last night, loaded with big-time offensive players like Sasha Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, and Sam Reinhart. Minnesota's vaunted defense was playing their first game without Matt Dumba, and with Jared Spurgeon on the shelf. The Wild started last year struggling mightily with goal prevention. Any of last year's magic was five months old.

    Then Florida came out buzzing, landing ten of their first dozen shots on goal. It was a recipe to fall behind early en route to a flat Opening Night performance. But Gustavsson stood tall enough that the Wild could get the first punch in when Brock Faber scored from 60 feet out eight minutes into the game. 

    Florida went a touch flat after that first goal, (then again when Joel Eriksson Ek made the game 2-0 on a power play goal in the second) but you can't keep this Panthers team down for long. They ended the first period leading 28 shot attempts to 10, and it stayed about that ugly for the entire game. 

    The Wild's vaunted defense looked exposed last night without Spurgeon. Or at least, they would have if the "Gus Bus" showed any rust. Jon Merrill was their very best defenseman at controlling play at even strength. Minnesota got just 36.2% of the expected goal share when he was on the ice. No other defenseman was above 30%.

    Just look at where Florida was getting their shots from with Evolving-Hockey's shot map:

    image.png

    Gustavsson faced 10 shots that had a 10% or greater chance to score last night... and that's just the ones that made it on net! He stopped all 10 of them. He stopped the ones that didn't have a high chance to score. Gustavsson stopped everything for a 41-save performance that almost certainly saved the Wild's bacon last night. 

    Again, look at that expected goal total for Florida: 3.27. If he gives up the "expected" total, Minnesota loses 3-2. They won 2-0. We can count Gustavsson's impact on our fingers. 

    It's just one game, but what a statement from Gustavsson in a situation that could've easily gone sideways. His Save% is now .922 for his career following his 67th game. It's an arbitrary endpoint, for sure, but let's look at what other goalies have done in their first 67 games since 2007-08, using Stathead's Player Span Finder:

    1. Cory Schneider: .928 save%
    2. Tuukka Rask: .928
    3. Cam Talbot: .926
    4. Ilya Sorokin: .924
    5. Scott Darling: .924
    6. Igor Shesterkin: .924
    7. Anton Khudobin: .924
    8. Petr Mrazek: .924
    9. Matt Murray: .923
    10. Philipp Grubauer: .922
    11. Jonas Hiller: .922
    12: Elvis Merzlikins: .922
    13. FILIP GUSTAVSSON: .922
    14: Braden Holtby: .921
    15: Frederik Andersen: .921

    You can pick out some players who went on to struggle afterwards (Merzlikins, Mrazek, and Murray standing out as examples). But most of these goalies went on to have solid careers as "1B"-type goalies, with many performing well as the No. 1 option. The flukes start getting weeded out right about this stage of Gustavsson's career. 

    Gustavsson is fending off the skeptics. Just like when he stood on his head in the second half of last season, it's coming at exactly the right time. Last night, the Wild looked like the same goaltending-reliant team they did down the stretch last year. Get some timely goals, and hope Gustavsson (or Marc-Andre Fleury) can carry them the rest of the way.

    It's probably going to be like that until Spurgeon can come in and stabilize things. While Dean Evason's instinct is likely to come back in Game 2 on Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs with Fleury, it's hard to make an argument against throwing Gustavsson back out in Game 2 against the high-octane Auston Matthews and more.

    If Game 1 is any indication of how the "Gus Bus" is going to run this year, their ride back to the playoffs shouldn't be bumpy at all.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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🚌

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    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...

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    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.  

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    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.

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    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. 

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    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. 

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    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.

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    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

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

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