Minnesota Wild Secures Key Player with Filip Gustavsson Deal

The Minnesota Wild are making moves to keep their team strong. They are close to signing their starting goalie, Filip Gustavsson, to a new contract. This comes after they recently signed star player Kirill Kaprizov to a huge deal worth $136 million over eight years. Gustavsson, who is 27 years old, has been a reliable player for the Wild. Last season, he played a career-high 58 games. He had a good record of 31 wins, 19 losses, and 6 ties. His goals-against average was 2. 56, and his save percentage was . 914. This performance earned him a spot in the Vezina Trophy voting, where he finished sixth and got two third-place votes. Originally, Gustavsson was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016. He played for the Ottawa Senators for two years before being traded to Minnesota in 2022. In Minnesota, he started by sharing the net with Marc-Andre Fleury. After Fleury retired this summer, Gustavsson took over as the main goalie. This season, he will be backed up by Jesper Wallstedt, a first-round pick from 2021. The Wild are making sure their core players, who are all under 30, are locked in with multi-year deals. This includes Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Brock Faber. They also have several young players on entry-level contracts who are expected to contribute this season, like Liam Ohgren, David Jiricek, and Zeev Buium. Signing Gustavsson is important because there are not many good goalies available in the NHL right now. This deal helps the Wild secure a key player for the future.