SUNRISE, FLA. – As if getting whisked into action off the bench halfway through a game wasn’t enough of a test, the scoreboard was also deceptively challenging for Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson.
He inherited the proverbial worst lead in hockey, the Wild ahead of the Panthers by three goals at 4-1 when Gustavsson replaced Marc-Andre Fleury after Fleury was clipped behind the net in the first period and later pulled himself due to injury.
“It feels like it almost can only go downwards after that,” Gustavsson said. “You feel really good, but it’s very few margins to make it a very tight game.”
Case in point: what happened Friday night.
Florida twice shrunk its deficit to two before finally getting it down to a single goal to tee off a white-knuckle finish for the Wild, who persevered 6-4 after an empty-netter from Ryan Hartman to give them a split going into their road trip finale on Sunday at Carolina.
From Gustavsson’s pinch-hit performance to the record display by the power play, this was far from a conventional win for the Wild.
But that might have made it mean even more to them.
“When it’s not going right for us, it’s frustrating,” defenseman Zach Bogosian said. “But I think having that resilience and having that mental focus is something you gotta really zone in on when you’re going through tough times.”