As the Capitals pressed hard for the tying goal late in the third period Tuesday against the Wild, goalie Filip Gustavsson made an improbable, spectacular save by kicking he puck with his skate blade to keep it out of the net.
Filip Gustavsson: A spectacular save for the Wild goalie in a stretch of steadiness
The Wild goalie preserved Tuesday's win over Washington with an improbable skate blade stop, but it's been Gustavsson's more routine saves that have told the story of his successful run.
January 18, 2023 at 5:20PM
When asked about it after the game — a 4-2 Wild victory made more comfortable with a late empty-net goal — Gustavsson smiled and said the maneuver was intentional.
"You need to stop it somehow," Gustavsson said. "You just try and figure out how to move that part of your body and lift it a little bit."
As remarkable as the save was, and befitting as it was of a goalie who is seeing the puck very well during a 10-2 stretch in his last 12 starts, what has really defined Gustavsson's excellence of late is his steadiness above any spectacular individual efforts.
He has a 1.67 goals against average and .940 save percentage in those 12 starts, earning more of an even playing time split with Marc-Andre Fleury than was employed at the start of the season.
A look inside the numbers gives us a glimpse into how Gustavsson has been doing it.
Per Natural Stat Trick, since Nov. 19 — spanning the last 12 Gustavsson starts — Gustavsson has allowed just seven combined goals on what the site defines as "medium danger" and "low danger" scoring chances.
Particularly impressive is his .959 save percentage on medium danger shots (93 saves on 97 chances) during that span.
Gustavsson has been respectable on "high danger" chances like the one he turned away Tuesday, posting an .835 save percentage on those opportunities. But it's really the routine stops that have defined his run, and a goalie that makes those types of stops will win a lot of hearts and minds among his teammates.
Fleury, by comparison, has allowed 12 medium-danger goals and six low-danger goals since Nov. 19 in a similar amount of playing time (15 games compared to 12 for Gustavsson).
What this means in the big picture is unclear. Is Gustavsson just on a hot run and will cool off, leaving Fleury as the clear No. 1 as the season unfolds and the playoffs approach? Or is this a subtle changing of the guard from a veteran future Hall of Famer to an emerging 24-year-old finding his game?
Time will tell, but a goaltending situation that looked shaky early this season is becoming much steadier now.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
