Gustavsson was especially clutch when Columbus pulled its goalie for an extra attacker, turning in two key stops on Adam Fantilli and Yegor Chinakhov in the final 30 seconds.
“Someone needs to stay calm there and just try to hold the fort down,” Gustavsson said. “As a goalie, you’re the last line of defense there. If you’re all scrambly, the rest of the team’s going to [be], too. I just tried to play as calm [as possible] and … hopefully the pucks hit me.”
Even though the outcome wasn’t a shutout, the performance was reminiscent of when Gustavsson blanked Florida 2-0 in last season’s home opener with a 41-save effort.
But as Gustavsson pointed out, that debut by the Wild wasn’t a trendsetter.
“Last year, we started off with a pretty good game, too,” he said. “We just didn’t get a Game 2 that was good enough or Game 3 or Game 4. We didn’t find it in the beginning.”
Their showing against the Blue Jackets, a bottom-five team a season ago, was far from perfect: Gustavsson was locked in, and the second line thrived, scoring twice before Matt Boldy set up Mats Zuccarello on the power play. But there wasn’t much rhythm on the first and third lines.