Gustavsson makes 41 saves, Wild shut out Panthers in season opener

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Filip Gustavsson made 41 saves, and the Minnesota Wild opened their season with a 2-0 win against the Florida Panthers at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.

“It’s not going to be like that every night, that’s for sure,” Gustavsson said. “It’s on the limit a few times. It’s very close that the puck goes by me. But sometimes you’re lucky, and you create your own luck.”

Joel Eriksson Ek had a goal and an assist, and Brock Faber scored his first NHL goal in his third career game for Minnesota.

“[Florida is] such an aggressive team as far as how much pressure they put on you,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “We didn't get out of our zone as quickly as we'd like in the first period, but we like the way the guys adjusted. We started to get out and into their zone a little more.

“They're a hard team to play against. They play hard, they play fast. They've got really good sticks. Fortunately, our defensive zone was good. Our penalty kill was good. Our goaltender was great.”

Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves for Florida, which went 0-for-3 on the power play in its season opener.

“I liked our game,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “The result is always the most important thing, to win a hockey game, but I’m not disappointed. I thought the power play got some looks. But the 4-on-3 portion of our penalty kill, the goal that we gave up was just a bit of a bad break. It was off a stick. Honestly, I was comfortable with it.”

Faber, a 21-year-old defenseman from Maple Grove, Minnesota, made it 1-0 with a snap shot from just inside the blue line at 7:54 of the first period.

“[Matt Boldy] gave it to me and I obviously had a lane and there were a bunch of screens in front,” Faber said. “I saw far side and kind of just hoped. It was more just a shot to get it down there than to pick a corner, but [I] got lucky.

“Everyone just kind of started skating towards me, so I figured something good happened.”

Eriksson Ek scored on a rebound in front at 12:56 of the second period for a power-play goal to make it 2-0.

“If you win hockey games, it’s a lot more fun to come to the rink,” Eriksson Ek said. “That’s what we want to do.”

Gustavsson made five saves on the penalty kill in third period, including a backdoor pad stop on Sam Reinhart’s redirection at 13:03 to preserve the shutout.

“They tried to go down to check and get the cross pass to (Evan) Rodrigues to try and go low across there, and it’s always hard,” Gustavsson said. “You have to respect the (Matthew) Tkachuk wraparound there too. Then when you’re down on your knees, it’s hard to cover as much.”

The Panthers outshot the Wild 14-5 in the first and 15-5 in the third.

“I mean, we had 41 shots or something, so I think we’ve got to score on a couple at least,” Florida captain Aleksander Barkov said. “It’s hard when you don’t score to win hockey games.”

NOTES: Gustavsson is the fourth Wild goalie to get a shutout in a season opener (Darcy Kuemper, 2014; Niklas Backstrom, 2007; Dwayne Roloson, 2001). … Minnesota forward Marcus Johansson left the game at 9:54 of the third following a hit into the boards from Florida defenseman Uvis Balinskis. There was no update. … Barkov has officially played 11 seasons with the Panthers, tying Stephen Weiss for most in their history. … Balinskis was minus-1 with two shots and two hits in 12:30 in his NHL debut, and Florida forward Mackie Samoskevich had two shots and one takeaway in 14:36 in his NHL debut.