Wild goaltending tandem set to reunite before upcoming road trip

The Wild should be back to full strength in net soon.

Filip Gustavsson returned to the crease on Sunday night in the 3-0 loss to St. Louis at Xcel Energy Center after leaving his previous start early due to illness and missing the Wild's 6-5 overtime loss on Saturday at Buffalo.

Marc-Andre Fleury handled that game before going to Montreal for personal reasons, but Wild coach Dean Evason said Fleury was flying back to Minnesota on Sunday and would travel with the Wild to New York for a road trip that begins on Tuesday vs. the Rangers.

Call-up Zane McIntyre backed up Fleury on Saturday and did the same on Sunday for Gustavsson, who Evason said dropped "lots" of weight.

"[Making] sure that his weight was back was the main thing," Evason said, "and he was cleared medically and is ready to go."

Gustavsson had one of his strongest performances of the season last Wednesday against Tampa Bay, stopping 34 of 35 shots in the 5-1 victory, before exiting with 2 minutes, 3 seconds to go because he was ill.

"I don't know if I ate something bad or whatever it was," he said. "I tossed everything out of my fridge and then started from fresh."

Although he didn't feel well in the second, Gustavsson played that period and most of the third until he "couldn't take it anymore" and skated off after the Wild tallied their fifth goal.

"That night after the game was tough, and then the next day I didn't sleep all night," said Gustavsson, who blocked 21 shots from the Blues. "Then I started to feel much better."

Fleury took over for the last 123 seconds, an abbreviated appearance that made his start on Saturday the 964th game of his career, which moved him into sole possession of fifth place on the NHL's all-time games played list for goalies.

That clash with the Sabres turned into a high-scoring showdown, with Buffalo forcing overtime after Rasmus Dahlin's shot went five-hole on Fleury with 2:24 remaining in the third period, but the outcome was not indicative of Fleury's play.

Not only did he keep out a close call from Owen Power before Dahlin's tying goal, Fleury then blocked three shots in overtime before the Sabres finally capitalized on an odd-man chance. He finished with 31 saves.

"The fifth goal goes through him," Evason said. "Twenty before that didn't. He was just phenomenal, made incredible saves and … he gave us every opportunity to win that hockey game."

A three-time Stanley Cup champion, Vezina Trophy recipient and future Hall of Famer, the 38-year-old Fleury is 4-1-1 with a 2.30 goals-against average and .923 save percentage in his past seven games.

He is only seven games shy of tying Terry Sawchuk at 971 for the fourth-most games. Earlier this season, Fleury became only the fourth netminder in NHL history to post 18 seasons of at least 10 wins. He also took over fourth in career saves (25,025).

After injury sidelined him for six weeks, Brandon Duhaime made an impact in his return to action on Saturday by delivering the Wild's first goal and his fourth of the season in 15 games.

Overall, Duhaime put three shots on net and dished out a game-high five hits in 12:21 of ice time.

Duhaime, who was idle for 18 games with an upper-body injury before drawing in against Buffalo, also sat out hurt five games earlier in the season. Last season as a rookie, the winger finished with six goals in 80 games after making the team out of training camp.

"Got to the net, finished checks, skated, scored a goal," Evason said of Duhaime, a fourth-round pick by the Wild in 2016. "Had a real good game."