ST. LOUIS – Marc-Andre Fleury, sporting 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 companion himself, the St. Louis Blues’ Pavel Buchnevich cooperated absolutely with a wonderfully positioned 79-foot shot straight towards the Wild emblem 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 purpose 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 staff 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 mentioned on the press elevator after the sport.

“That was superior,” common supervisor Invoice Guerin mentioned. “You don’t see a goalie objective day by day.”

“An influence-play objective,” identified assistant GM Michael Murray.

With 34 seconds left within the Blues’ dwelling opener and St. Louis attempting to kill a double minor, coach Drew Bannister referred to as timeout searching for a miracle along with his staff down two.

Fleury had different plans.

“I referred to as a fast goalie assembly,” Fleury mentioned, laughing.

Gustavsson skated over to the bench and acquired some recommendation from the sensible future Corridor of Famer.

“Flower appeared as much as the board and was like, ‘We’re up two targets. It is best to most likely attempt it in the event you get the possibility. You’re taking pictures, proper?’” Gustavsson recalled. “I used to be like, ‘Yeah, perhaps I ought to.’”

Gustavsson had by no means scored a objective at any degree of hockey. He’d by no means contemplate it with a one-goal lead as a result of if he missed, it might be an icing and an offensive-zone faceoff for the Blues.

“Up 2-nothing, I used to be like, ‘Yeah, if I get the possibility, I’ll attempt it,’” Gustavsson mentioned.

After which he acquired his likelihood.

Gustavsson figures Buchnevich was taking pictures the puck straight at him so he’d catch it, freeze it and provides the Blues a late faceoff. However as a substitute, Buchnevich “simply put it straight within the glove and I attempted and put it down as fast as I might,” Gustavsson mentioned. “It simply laid good there on the ice, and I simply try to shoot it as arduous as I might.”

As Fleury mentioned, “Textbook.”

Chabot, the Wild’s goalie coach of 5 seasons, likes to do enjoyable issues along with his goaltenders in apply.

One of many coolest trying is when he’ll have one goalie stand straight in entrance of the opposite to set one ginormous display screen. Chabot will then whistle dead-accurate photographs to the left, then to the fitting, then again to the left … over and over and over on both aspect of the screening goalie so the one within the crease has to combat to seek out the puck.

However essentially 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 mentioned. “Not Gus.”

What shocked Chabot essentially 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 fitting angle to get it that prime,” Gustavsson mentioned. “However I don’t know, additional powers or one thing.”

Most cool, in response to 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 response to 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, who scored the game-winning short-handed objective within the second interval for his first objective with the Wild, needed 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 mentioned. “It’s fairly spectacular, and he deserves it. It might have been nicer at dwelling, with a full barn, however you already know it’s an unimaginable second. I’m simply pleased for him.”

Gustavsson’s objective was the Wild’s fourth power-play objective of the season. He joked that he needed to assist push the ability play over 20 %, however he truly pushed it to 30.8 %.

“Ought to most likely be within the energy play conferences now,” Gustavsson mentioned.

Wild coach John Hynes has seen a goalie objective earlier than. Whereas teaching Nashville, Pekka Rinne scored one in Chicago.

“It was certainly one of my first couple video games in Nashville,” he recalled. “Nevertheless it was virtually similar to Gus’s. It was type of a six-on-five state of affairs and type of dumped in on the goalie and he had time to have the ability to do it and you can inform each guys … had been going for it. Nice to see.”

With the Wild taking part in seven defensemen and never taking part in once more till in Columbus on Saturday, Kirill Kaprizov logged 27:59 of ice time — the second-most in his NHL profession. In line with ESPN, it was the sixth-most by a ahead who had no photographs in a sport since 2000-01.

However Kaprizov was terrific, having two lovely 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: “Identical (variety of) targets like numerous guys.”

“It’s most likely not gonna be for lengthy,” Gustavsson mentioned.

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 taking part in so effectively, they want Wallstedt to get some practices and sport motion someplace and proper now it may possibly’t be Minnesota.

The Wild wish to get Wallstedt extra video games within the NHL this season than the three he acquired final yr, however the secret is successful and if Gustavsson retains racking up victories, he ought to get the majority of the taking part in 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 share and goals-against common within the NHL and never the one which floundered final season to a sub-.900 save share.

To this point in three begins, he’s 2-0-1 with a 1.66 goals-against common and .948 save share. He labored arduous this offseason, got here again to Minnesota in tip-top form and has improved upon his apply habits.

“I don’t suppose I do something particular on the market,” he mentioned. “(I’m not) flashy. Clearly, I make some larger saves, however that’s often while you’re out of place. I simply attempt to be in the fitting place more often than not and make boring saves. And I feel that’s been working excellent up to now.”

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 pleased and nobody was pleased with what had gone on,” Hynes mentioned. “He put some arduous work on this summer season and he’s come again in I feel the fitting mindset and discovered his classes from final yr and now he’s are available and he’s taking part in actual stable and also you want that.

“Early within the yr typically it’s powerful to win in the event you 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, techniques aren’t completely dialed in the place they have to be so when you may get actually high quality goaltending early, it provides you the very best likelihood to win.”

Goalie targets assist, too.

(Photograph: Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Photographs)





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