The Minnesota Wild made headlines on Saturday morning when they signed starting goaltender Filip Gustavsson to a five-year, $34 million contract. It was the second contract they agreed to in less than a week after the Wild inked Kirill Kaprizov to a record-setting deal on Tuesday,
Gustavsson's $6.8 million annual cap hit would pin him as the 11th highest-paid goaltender in the league when the contract kicks in at the beginning of the 2026-27 season. But is it a worthy contract for both sides?
The Wild and Gustavsson's camp wasted no time getting this deal done ahead of the 2025-26 season. The 27-year-old netminder is entering the final season of the three-year deal he signed in 2023, which carries a $3.75 million annual cap hit, and he will now not need to worry about another contract for the next eight years.
Gustavsson led the Wild to their fifth playoff berth in the past six seasons while putting up Vezina-quality numbers for the majority of the season. If he can stay at his 2024-25 peak for a consistent stretch of time, this deal could age really well for Minnesota, but he has had his ups and downs in his three-year tenure with the Wild thus far.
Just in 2023-24, he went 20-18-4 with a .899 save percentage and a 3.06 goals-against average in 43 starts. It was the lone season over the past six years when the Wild slipped out of the playoffs. Just the season before, he had a 22-9-7 record with a .931 save percentage and a 2.10 goals-against average when he was brought in to be Marc-Andre Fleury's backup for the 2022-23 season.
Only time will tell if Gustavsson can avoid the valleys in his play and reach the potential he has shown in the past.
Filip Gustavsson's deal could age well for Wild with trend in goalie deals
Gustavsson was not the only notable goaltender to ink a massive deal in recent weeks.
The Calgary Flames signed Dustin Wolf to a seven-year deal with a $7.5 million annual price tag that surpasses Gustavsson as the 10th-highest-paid goaltender in the league. The Calder Trophy runner-up's contract extension will also kick in at the start of the 2026-27 season, just as Gustavsson's does.
Spencer Knight also signed a similar deal with the Chicago Blackhawks during the 2025 offseason, netting a $5.8 million annual price tag on a three-year deal.
Gustavsson's average annual value landing in between those two price points is more than fair considering the quality of goaltending he has provided.
Wolf's rookie-season numbers were slightly worse than Gustavsson's totals from 2024-25. He went 29-16-8 with a .910 save percentage and a 2.64 goals-against average, but he also showed a high ceiling behind a Calgary Flames team that was going through a transitional phase defensively and ended up missing the playoffs.
Knight spent the majority of the season as Sergei Bobrovsky's backup in Florida before the Panthers traded him to Chicago, and he ended up with a 17-16-3 record with a .901 save percentage and a 2.72 goals-against average. He has had a roller coaster of a career, but the Blackhawks were clearly paying for the potential of the 2019 first-round pick.
When looking at how much teams value a goaltender's ceiling when signing these deals, especially recently, the Wild potentially could have a bargain on their hands with Gustavsson's $6.8 million cap hit.
Filip Gustavsson gains stability but keeps ability for bigger pay day later
Gustavsson and his camp were forward-thinking when coming to terms with this new contract.
The 27-year-old goaltender was able to get a stable deal for himself at what is now a solid cap hit for the next five years, but he is also not married to it. He is going to be 32 when the contract expires, and if he lives up to it, he will have an even bigger opportunity on his hands.
As the NHL's salary cap continues to go higher and higher, deals for starting-caliber goaltenders will only grow to be more and more lucrative and Gustavsson is putting himself in the sweet spot to get another big deal.
Sergei Bobrovsky was 31 when the Panthers backed up the Brinks truck for him with a massive seven-year, $70 million deal in 2019. That is very much in the cards for Gustavsson if he can prove himself, and Florida proved that it is, indeed, a successful model to follow after winning back-to-back Stanley Cups with Bobrovsky.
Gustavsson is setting himself up for success with this deal.
Final grades and thoughts
The only argument against why the Wild should have made this deal was Gustavsson's dud of a 2023-24 season, but he proved he was more than capable of bouncing back from that the following year. His 31-19-6 season with a .914 save percentage and a 2.56 goals-against average is more than a fine-enough baseline to build off of in the future, and it is a deal that works well for both sides.
Filip Gustavsson grade: A+
Gustavsson's cap hit is going to be comparable to his peers for the next five years, but he opened himself up to an opportunity to hit it big when he turns 32. If he continues to prove himself as a consistently good starting goaltender, he could set himself up for a contract similar to Bobrovsky's massive deal from 2019. And with a salary cap that has continued to rise, it is only getting better from here.
The Wild hope that they can get five years of elite quality goaltending that Gustavsson has shown that he is very capable of down the road. If he can consistently put up the Vezina-quality numbers he was putting up in 2022-23 and the beginning of the 2024-25 season, this is a lock as one of the best contracts in the NHL for the next five years.
