COLUMBUS, Ohio – Filip Gustavsson can call himself a goal scorer after his historic empty-netter, but Gustavsson isn’t neglecting his namesake.
Still in the afterglow of the Wild’s first goalie goal, Gustavsson returned to his roots by leading the Wild past the Blue Jackets 3-1 on Saturday night at Nationwide Arena with 23 saves.
This is the best start of Gustavsson’s NHL career: He’s 3-0-1 and has given up two goals or fewer in each of his starts.
As for the Wild, they’re 3-0-2 and haven’t trailed in any of their games — a run of 300 regulation minutes. Not only is this the longest the Wild have gone without falling behind to start a season, but this is the fourth-best streak in NHL history, per NHL Stats.
Marco Rossi’s first-period goal was the Wild’s only offense until the third period, when Kirill Kaprizov capitalized on the power play and Mats Zuccarello tacked on a third goal.
After a wide-open Rossi flipped a Yakov Trenin pass over Columbus goalie Daniil Tarasov’s blocker 12 minutes, 40 seconds into the first, the Wild did tuck another puck behind Tarasov almost five minutes into the second period when Jake Middleton buried his own rebound.
But former Wild coach Dean Evason, now behind the Blue Jackets’ bench, challenged the play, and the league ruled the Wild’s Jakub Lauko pushed Columbus’ Jordan Harris into Tarasov, which impeded Tarasov’s ability to protect his net.
