By Tony Abbott -
When Filip Gustavsson signed his five-year, $34 million extension before the season started, the Minnesota Wild's plans didn't actually change all that much. The Wild may have secured a starting-caliber goalie for the long term, but there was plenty of room for Goalie of the Future candidate Jesper Wallstedt to carve out a starting job of his own.
Well, game on.
"The Great Wall of St. Paul" has made an early statement. Coming off two weeks of rest after his only bad start of the season -- allowing six goals on 25 shots against the San Jose Sharks on October 26 -- Wallstedt showed that he could leave his failures behind and shut them out. Literally. He won on the road against the New York Islanders, giving his team a win on the second half of a back-to-back, then blanked the Calgary Flames for his second career shutout.
As it stands, Wallstedt has a .909 save percentage, and Minnesota has points in all five of his starts (3-0-2). Meanwhile, their starter Gustavsson has a 4-7-1 record and a .896 save percentage in 12 starts.
That start has to be concerning to Wild fans with a long memory. Before Gustavsson seized the No. 1 goalie role last year, he struggled out of the gate in the 2023-24 season. Through 12 starts, Gustavsson sported a 3-6-2 record paired with an .886 save percentage. The "Gus Bus" never really got back on track. He finished the year with a 20-18-4 record and a .899 save percentage.
These two starts look similar on the surface, and that would create an opening for Wallstedt.
But they aren't very similar. Not at all. And this is still Gustavsson's net (for now) with good reason.
For one, we probably need to recalibrate what "sub-.900 save percentage" means. We're not just in Year 3 of the league-average save percentage being below .900; the line keeps going down as skaters are starting to convert on nearly 11% of their shots. After reaching its Analytics Era Peak in 2013-14, the NHL's all situations save percentage has dropped in each of the past 12 seasons.
2013-14: .9120
2014-15: .9118
2015-16: .9112
2016-17: .9110
2017-18: .9094
2018-19: .9062
2019-20: .9060
2020-21: .9042
2021-22: .9024
2022-23: .9004
2023-24: .8991
2024-25: .8941
2025-26: .8908
The Second Dead Puck Era is, well, dead. Ever since Kirill Kaprizov entered the league (I refuse to believe this is coincidence), save percentages have tumbled. Gustavsson's .899 save percentage in 2023-24 was, believe it or not, league average! Gustavsson's .896 is somehow five points above league average!
A slight knock on Gustavsson during his time with the Wild is that his save percentage is boosted by the franchise's historical tendency toward structured defensive play. Gustavsson deserves credit for making the stops, of course, but Jonas Brodin, Jared Spurgeon, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Marcus Foligno have often been there to make things easier on him.
If that were still true this season, Gustavsson's save percentage would be a pretty big red flag. Fortunately for Gustavsson (though, perhaps not the rest of the team), that's not the case. The Wild are 22nd in expected goals allowed per hour in all situations (3.54), and 27th at 5-on-5 (2.95). Not only that, but Gustavsson has taken the brunt of those bad defensive performances.
Gustavsson's teammates have often hung him out to dry. Only Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators has seen more shot attempts against than Gustavsson, and he's almost constantly under siege. He's faced five expected goals against twice this season, including his last start against the Carolina Hurricanes. He's also seen 3.5-plus expected goals against in more games (six) than he has below 3.0 (five).
Part of this is the Wild's faltering defense, but it's also a product of matchups. Gustavsson has already faced five of the NHL's top-10 teams in expected goals per hour in all situations, and eight of the league's top-15 teams.
Meanwhile, John Hynes has done a masterful job of giving Wallstedt favorable matchups to boost his confidence. The Islanders are the only team in the league's top-20 in expected goals per hour (all situations) that Wallstedt has seen, and three of his five starts have come against the six worst offensive teams.
Accounting for this constant bombardment, Gustavsson has done pretty well. The Gus Bus has only truly stalled out for two games: October 11 against the Columbus Blue Jackets (6 goals on 3.53 expected) and October 28 against the Winnipeg Jets (4 goals on 2.36 expected). Those are the only times he's given up more than a full goal than expected, and he's been a positive in seven of his 12 starts. All told, he ranks 24th in the NHL with 3.67 Goals Saved Above Expected, which is notably ahead of Wallstedt (43rd, 0.60 GSAx).
That's not to say there's no room for improvement. Gustavsson should keep working on his game-to-game consistency, and hey, there's nothing in the rulebook that says you can't steal a game when you're getting badly outshot. Nor is it to take away from what Wallstedt is doing, which is exactly what the team was hoping for following his lost season.
Wallstedt is clearly making a push to make the Wild's net more of a timeshare. That's a good thing for Wallstedt, and it's probably a good thing for Gustavsson. As of tonight's anticipated start, Gustavsson will be on pace to start 59 games, which is a bit on the high side. But even as Wallstedt chips away at that number, and despite the ugly-looking numbers, Gustavsson is still deserving of drawing in most of his starts.
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