ST. PAUL, Minn. — Filip Gustavsson wasn’t born yesterday.
Marc-Andre Fleury signed a one-year extension with the Minnesota Wild this week, “goalie of the future” Jesper Wallstedt won both of his starts in the final six games of the season, and there’s a good chance the Wild don’t see the value of the first-round pick spending another year in the minors.
Gustavsson, who has already been traded twice in his NHL career, has a sense the writing is on the wall and that he’ll be dangled in the trade winds this offseason, especially after a season in which he admits he was way too inconsistent between the pipes.
“We’ll see. There is always a business side to hockey,” Gustavsson, 25, said Friday after cleaning out his locker and having separate exit meetings with coach John Hynes and president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin. “I like it here and would love to be back next year and try to redeem what happened this year. We’ll see.”
Gustavsson, looking shellshocked after his exit meetings with Hynes, echoed many of his teammates and talked about the “empty” feeling he was experiencing after the team missed the playoffs for the second time in 12 years.
“We came into the season (thinking) that we wanted to get by the first round,” he said. “Now we didn’t even get the chance to try and do that.”
Gustavsson posted the second-best save percentage (.931) and goals-against average (2.10) in the NHL last season but sank to an .899 save percentage and 3.06 GAA this season. He said there were too many ups and downs — “some very good games, some very poor games.”
“Very frustrating because you can play so good sometimes and then you have bad performances,” he said. “It just tears on you instead of going on a steady pace the whole way.”
There’s little doubt that Hynes talked pointedly to Gustavsson about his fitness level because Gustavsson openly talked about needing to come into camp in “the best shape I can be” next season and also volunteered, “I have some personal things I need to sort out to be even better for my own sake going out and play goalie every night.”
Gustavsson alluded to this in Los Angeles last week, as well, saying that mentally he needs to be much stronger in the net so his game doesn’t disintegrate during tough moments.
“The brain is big thing in how people work,” Gustavsson said. “If the brain isn’t there, you don’t perform at your highest level. … If you’re winning, it’s very easy. You just feel happiness, (getting) 2 points all the time and life is good. When you lose a few or you play bad, you start questioning yourself. Or the team is playing bad and stuff like that, how to handle it in a better. More just control what you can control.”
Hynes discussed their exit meeting and what was said about Gustavsson’s fitness level and practice habits.
“He was very well thought out in his meeting, and he recognizes some things that need to improve,” Hynes said. “There’s a clear plan in place for him. We’ll stay connected on it this summer, whether it’s myself or (goalie coach) Freddy (Chabot), with him. Sometimes in a tougher year, you learn those lessons where maybe you could get away with certain things before. And then when you go into a situation where it doesn’t, I think sometimes it ignites someone to realize that there needs to be a certain improvement.
“He’s a very talented guy and I think the big thing a lot of players have to learn is that a lot of them are here because of talent, but then how do you take that talent and make it excellent or elite? A lot of times it’s all the things surrounding the game. It’s your mental toughness. It’s your mental mind state. It’s your fitness. It’s how you practice. And it’s how you prepare. Sometimes guys need to learn that they need to take it to another level to maximize their talent. And that’s encouraging to us that Gus is in that place.”
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .