Gustavsson pleased with Sodertalje stint
With NHL training camp for the 2020-21 season still waiting to get underway, Gustavsson found himself a spot on Sodertalje, a Swedish team playing in the country's second division, the HockeyAllsvenskan.
This way, he can work on the thing that hinders him at the start of a season: a slow start.
But it also allowed him to continue to ride the momentum he had at the end of the 2019-20 Belleville Senators season.
"The start of the year, normally, I have a hard time with the early games in the year and this year I got going right away and played like I finished last year," he said. "I felt that after Christmas last year I played really good and it felt like my whole game was fitting together.
"So, I felt like I started where I left off last year and with the goalie coach here, Calle Brattenberger, we got the usual stuff going at the beginning and made some small adjustments and it's worked out."
Gustavsson is right about picking up where he left off last season in the AHL. In 11 starts in 2020 with Belleville, he went 8-1-2. In January, he won the league's CCM/AHL Goaltender of the Month award after going 4-0-1 record with a 1.78 GAA and a .942 save percentage in five starts. He also recorded his first career AHL shutout Jan. 20 in a 3-0 win in Rockford.
With Sodertalje, the 22-year-old went 11-7 with a 2.30 GAA and .919 save percentage in 19 games. The team announced Gustavsson was returning to North America on Dec. 11.
After a chat with Pierre Groulx, the Senators' goaltending coach, and his agent, Gustavsson agreed that it'd be beneficial to try and find a loan in Europe. Gustavsson has previous experience in the SHL, Sweden's top league, but they weren't taking any players on short term loans. Once there was an injury to one of Sodertalje's goaltenders, the stars lined up from there. He was loaned to the team on Sept. 26 and made his first start on Oct. 7.
"It's been really nice," Gustavsson said. "I'd begun to get bored working out on my own every morning and just skating with other players that were home during the summer. But being with a team and practicing, and the games have been super fun especially when I came here, I didn't have any pressure to show anything. It was more like a preseason for me to get everything going. Just play very calm and enjoy my time being with a Swedish team as well."
He admits it was a nice change of pace to play in his native country and on a team that is predominantly made up of fellow Swedes. He quips that he's glad he was able understand all of the little jokes, something he can't always grasp when speaking English.
Life in Sweden has been fairly normal he explains with masks only having to be worn on airplanes. Sodertalje is located just outside of Stockholm, where his aunt and cousins live, so he had the chance to spend time with his family. His girlfriend, Rebecka, visited from Gustavsson's hometown of Skelleftea, where they purchased their first home earlier this year.
Now he returns to Ottawa to begin his quarantine as he prepares for his second season of the year but will hold his time with Sodertalje in high regard.
"My team has been great, welcoming me and I've made a lot of new friends here. It's been awesome."
