DENVER \u2014 After Minnesota Wild goalie Jesper Wallstedt gave up a career-high eight goals in a 9-6 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 1 of the team\u2019s second-round series, Filip Gustavsson will make his first start of the playoffs on Tuesday in Game 2 at Ball Arena.<\/p>\n
The Wild\u2019s No. 1 throughout the season, Gustavsson struggled after the Olympic break and lost the net to Wallstedt coming into the playoffs. But coach John Hynes said Tuesday that Gustavsson is \u201chungry\u201d to get back in and that there are a \u201cmultitude of reasons\u201d for the switch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had two very good goalies all year,\u201d Hynes said. \u201cGus has played a lot of good hockey for us. Wally\u2019s taken the brunt of the playoffs. He\u2019s played seven straight games, played very well, quick turnaround at the end of the series to come to Colorado. And we have confidence in both of our goalies. They\u2019re both excellent. They both played really good hockey. We believe in either one of them. Either one of them can win us a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think it\u2019s a good opportunity to get Gus in the net. He\u2019s hungry to get in. I think he dealt with not playing for a while. Obviously, Wally played very well, our team won and continued to go through, but we\u2019ve got another excellent goalie that\u2019s hungry to get back in the net.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will be Gustavsson\u2019s first start since April 13 \u2014 22 days ago \u2014 and Hynes said he handled sitting \u201clike a pro,\u201d didn\u2019t \u201cconcede the net\u201d and worked hard on and off ice to get it back. The decision also allows Wallstedt to take a mental and physical reset after the heavy workload recently.<\/p>\n
Gustavsson is 4-6 all-time in 11 playoff games with a 2.53 goals-against average and .917 save percentage. In 11 career regular-season games against Colorado, he\u2019s 3-7-1 with a 3.56 GAA and .898 save percentage.<\/p>\n
After rotating both goalies for much of the year, even sometimes after one had a shutout, the Wild had a tough decision heading into the playoffs between Gustavsson and Wallstedt.<\/p>\n
In the end, both goalies made the decision easier.<\/p>\n
In eight of Wallstedt\u2019s final nine starts, he gave up two or fewer goals. In his final 10 games (nine starts), he went 4-3-2 with a 1.98 GAA and a .930 save percentage. On the other hand, Gustavsson allowed four or more goals in five of his final six starts, going 2-4 with a 4.25 GAA and an .836 save percentage.<\/p>\n
In Gustavsson\u2019s final regular-season start in St. Louis behind a lineup with 10 regulars out, he gave up five goals on 22 shots. This came after he allowed five goals on 20 shots with 3.11 goals saved below expected in his final start against the Wild\u2019s first-round opponent, the Dallas Stars.<\/p>\n
In Wallstedt\u2019s final start of the regular season, behind a virtually identical inferior lineup with 10 regulars out and in the second game of a back-to-back, he made 35 saves and saved 2.8 goals above expected against an Anaheim Ducks team that had a lot to play for.<\/p>\n
Wallstedt went 4-2 against the Stars with a 2.05 GAA and .924 save percentage. He made 32 saves on 42 shots in Sunday\u2019s Game 1.<\/p>\n
Hynes didn\u2019t reveal any other specific lineup tweaks. Jeff Petry did come off the ice early during the Wild\u2019s optional skate, so banged-up Zach Bogosian could be out Tuesday night. The Wild are already without defenseman Jonas Brodin and center Joel Eriksson Ek.<\/p>\n
On the Avalanche side, coach Jared Bednar didn\u2019t announce whether he\u2019s sticking with Scott Wedgewood, who gave up six goals in Game 1, or will start Mackenzie Blackwood, saying he feels comfortable with either goalie.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I said at the start, I can\u2019t just go off conventional thinking of, \u2018It\u2019s just one goalie,’\u201d Bednar said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the way our team operated all year.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also wouldn\u2019t say if defenseman Josh Manson, who was hurt in the series against Los Angeles, will return.<\/p>\n
Manson skated Monday at an optional practice. Cale Makar, who suffered a lower-body injury scare in the first period of Game 1, didn\u2019t skate either Monday or Tuesday morning\u2019s optional skates. But Bednar said Monday he anticipates that the star defenseman will play.<\/p>\n
Defenseman Jack Ahcan was up from the AHL and on the ice for morning skate, but he remained on the ice late with the other presumed scratches. So it looks like if Manson can\u2019t go, Nick Blankenburg will stay in.<\/p>\n
Also, according to a report from Daria Tuboltseva, the Avalanche are bringing over goalie Ilya Nabokov, their 2024 second-round pick, from Russia. Nabokov had a .901 save percentage with Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the KHL this season. Though he is technically allowed to play this postseason, the move is likely just to have him join the organization and either work with goalie coach Jussi Parkkila or join the AHL Colorado Eagles, who are in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
If Wedgewood or Blackwood were to get hurt at some point, Eagles goalie Trent Miner \u2014 who appeared in four NHL games this year \u2014 would be the likely call-up to dress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER \u2014 After Minnesota Wild goalie Jesper Wallstedt gave up a career-high eight goals in a 9-6 loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1223,4828,385,99],"class_list":["post-625451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}