The Goalie Tandem

On one of the last days before the start of the National Hockey League playoffs future Hall of Famer Marc-Andre Fleury scampered onto the quiet ice at TRIA Rink in downtown St. Paul in just his flip-flops, leggings and long-sleeved t-shirt.
In his hands he had a gold balloon, a shirt with the #32 hand-written on the front, some string, a pair of leggings and a goalie stick.

He worked diligently as the arena staff watched with great curiosity. When he was done there was a scarecrow-like figure holding a goalie stick in the middle of the net that would soon be occupied by Fleury's partner Filip Gustavsson who happens to wear #32.
As the players stepped onto the ice Gustavsson stopped near the players' entrance and looked down at the strange figure in his workplace.
He shook his head. He didn't need to ask anyone who was responsible for the impromptu art installation. Fleury insisted these kinds of shenanigans all started with Gustavsson. Gustavsson insists that's not the case at all.
"I didn't think so. I thought he got me with shaving cream on a towel after his shutout game in Columbus (in February). But he doesn't want to admit he did it. So I don't know," Gustavsson said. "But I thought it was him so I retaliated with sewing his socks together. After a home game, when we won it, I rushed into the locker room grabbed his two socks and sewed them all together."
There has always been something joyful about Fleury's approach to the game.
It's part of what made him beloved in Pittsburgh all those years. And in Vegas when he instantly became the face of that expansion franchise. It's why Wild GM Bill Guerin wanted Fleury, with whom he won a Stanley Cup in 2009 as a player, on his team in Minnesota.
That's not to understate the elite skill set and competitiveness that have always been part of Fleury's career. But this season has brought with it a different dynamic as it relates to his relationship with Gustavsson.
And it's fair to say that, along with continuing to provide elite goaltending, Fleury's presence and welcoming nature, have played no small role in Gustavsson's breakout season during which the 24-year-old ranked statistically among the best goaltenders in the NHL.
Gustavsson then followed up with a sterling performance in Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs against Dallas setting a franchise record with 51 stops in the Wild's 3-2 double-overtime win in Dallas Monday night. It was his first-ever NHL playoff appearance.
"I think Flower's helped him tremendously, learning how to deal with adversity or shaking off a bad night or a bad goal or whatever," Guerin said referring to Fleury by his long-time nickname.
"He's really matured as a person and as a goalie," Guerin said of Gustavsson. The reality is that no one knew exactly what the Wild were getting when Gustavsson came back as part of the Cam Talbot trade last off-season although Guerin is quick to credit his hockey operations staff with doing their due diligence.
Even before the Talbot trade the hockey ops group had been tasked with finding a young goaltender with up-side that wouldn't break the bank given the team's salary cap situation.
"Gus was one of them. He wasn't 'the' guy, he was one of the guys that was identified and when the trade became available with Ottawa it was okay we'll do this but we need Gus," Guerin said.
There really wasn't much of a sample size. There were 27 NHL games in Ottawa and 33 more with the Senators' American Hockey League affiliate in Belleville.
And when Gustavsson got to Minnesota there was lots of work to do on a number of different levels.
"You have to give him most of the credit. He's done the work. He came in here he was not in great shape," Guerin said. "And Freddie Chabot has worked really well with him. Flower has helped him. But he's gotten into really good shape. He's focused."
Goaltending coach Frederic Chabot believes that there's not much complex about Gustavsson's game when he's playing it the way he needs to.
"Filip plays a game that when he's on his game he will have consistency. All he's got to do is prepare himself, take care of himself, because when he goes out there he plays the same way," Chabot explained. "It's a very simple way to play. He gets in position and he takes the net away, gets hit, covers the puck, let's go again."
Maybe more than any other position, not just in hockey but maybe in all of sport, the mental part of being an NHL goaltender is often what separates the good from the great, the poseurs from the champions.
To hear Gustavsson talk, it is as though he has wandered from one reality to another in coming to Minnesota and in doing so he has become not just a different goaltender but a different person.
Some of that change is obvious given the Wild are a playoff team with big expectations as opposed to an Ottawa team still trying to figure out its plan.
"I had my really good games in Ottawa last year but then I had my fair share of bad games too and I think that was the problem in Ottawa, I had to play my best every night and I couldn't have one night off when I could have let in one bad goal," Gustavsson said. To let in the bad goal was basically to guarantee a loss.
"Here it's a more complete team and if I have a night where I don't feel at my best it feels like the team can cover me," Gustavsson said.
Game 1 in Dallas was like that. Two Dallas power play goals scored 2:05 apart were goals he had a clean line of sight on and didn't make the stop. But Gustavsson said he hit the reset button and was rock solid the rest of the way.
All of this is part of a mindset that has allowed him to worry less about being 'Filip Gustavsson goalie' and Filip Gustavsson a guy who plays goal.
"I think I've had it easier to relax from the hockey outside," he said. "Outside when I walk out of the hockey rink I just try to be Filip the person and come home to my dogs, my girl and then when I see these guys outside of the hockey rink I don't want to be that goalie. I just want to be a normal person. And if I lose a game I try to leave the game at the rink and handle losses and wins in a better way so it doesn't affect people around me outside of the rink."
The relationship with Fleury has been a catalyst to finding that inner Zen.
"When you're playing in the NHL it's the best league and it's a lot of pressure and he makes me feel like it's just a very fun hobby we do on the side almost," Gustavsson said. "I could do so many worse things than putting on some hockey gear and go out and play with some really good friends."
His emergence as a top-flite goaltender may be unexpected but he's no longer an unknown quantity.
"I think what's impressive about Gustavsson is that he recognized the importance of this move to Minnesota and what it could do for his career. Sometimes when you get traded, you can go either way," longtime NHL netminder and top analyst Brian Boucher said. "He embraced the move and I think the style that Minnesota plays suits his game well. He has a calmness to his game when he's on it that I think serves the Wild well too."
Long-time professional netminder and accomplished analyst Mike McKenna crossed paths with Gustavsson briefly in Ottawa. He felt Gustavsson needed more urgency in his game and has been impressed with the ascendency of his game.
"He's just been rock solid," McKenna said. "This is an amazing trade for Bill Guerin. Man it was a great gamble."
We started this story with Marc-Andre Fleury and his role in all of this. So there is symmetry to ending it with the veteran netminder.
"Quiet guy. Simple. Great kid. Honestly relaxed. Like he plays on the ice. Same," Fleury said. "Very relaxed always. He's had a tremendous season. He's consistent. Good technically. Among the best, the stats. So it's fun to watch him grow watch him perform all season."
It's not like Fleury is following him around whispering sage advice while Gustavsson is eating his breakfast. He's not the 'goalie whisperer'.
But organically there is information passed, experiences shared, a bond formed and the results have been impressive.
"He's very good but I try, you know, to help when I can," Fleury said. "I know sometimes you can get in your head thinking and stuff. Little things I've learned over the years."
Fleury has been in Gustavsson's position, too, the younger goalie earning more and more playing time with an older partner. It was so with Jocelyn Thibault, J.S. Aubin, Mathieu Garon, Brent Johnson. Fleury pauses because he doesn't want to forget a name and somehow insult anyone. That's who Fleury is.
Thibault, especially, comes to mind because Thibault came to Pittsburgh with the expectation that he would be the starter and Fleury, the first overall draft pick in 2003, started to play more and more.
But it changed nothing about the relationship between the two.
"And he was so nice to me," Fleury recalled. "Always encouraging, always taking me out, always taking care of me and I don't forget that right?"
Head coach Dean Evason has repeatedly indicated he thinks there's a role for both netminders on this run. It may not be in Game 2 but whenever the moment is Fleury, age 38, relishes the chance.
But the winning is the thing.
"I know I'm almost done right?" Fleury said.
"It's hard too, because I love playing too right?" he added. "I have a lot more fun being in the net than sitting on the bench right? Everybody would. But at the end of the day I feel like you're a part of a team, team has to win. So you do your part. If it's on the bench, it's on the bench, if it's on the ice, it's on the ice."
"In my head that's how it should be," Fleury said. "And maybe now getting older maybe I'm a little bit more at ease with it. It's easier a bit."