Unmasked: Gustavsson of Wild latest to join trend of goalie goals

Filip Gustavsson not only became part of an exclusive club when he launched a puck out of his end and into an empty net Tuesday.

The Minnesota Wild goalie became part of NHL history.

Gustavsson's goal, scored with nine seconds left in the Wild's 4-1 win at the St. Louis Blues, made him the 15th goalie score in the NHL, but just the 10th to do so by shooting it into an empty net (the others were the last to touch an own-goal). It also marked the third straight season that a goalie has shot and scored into an empty net, something that never had happened before in the League.

All of which begs the question: Are goalies ready to break out as goal-scorers?

Certainly more goalies than ever before are capable of scoring a goal, something they credit to a mix of improvements in goalie stick technology and the increased need to be competent as a puck-handler to play the position in the NHL.

"More guys than not in the NHL right now are physically capable of doing it,” said Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Alex Nedeljkovic, who has scored three goals in 10 professional seasons, two in the American Hockey League and one in the ECHL. "If you gave them the ice to themselves and just said, 'Launch the puck in the air, all the way past the far blue line and into the net,' more goalies are capable of doing that. It's not easy by any means because you’ve still got to get it 200 feet, over five or six guys and into a six-foot wide net. So it's still not easy. But guys are getting really good at it."

Linus Ullmark started the scoring streak with an empty-net goal for the Boston Bruins with 48 seconds remaining in a 3-1 win at the Vancouver Canucks on Feb. 25, 2023, and Tristan Jarry kept it going by scoring for the Penguins with 1:08 left in a 4-2 win at the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 30, 2023.

Though goalies scored in four consecutive seasons from 1998-99 to 2001-02, it included two own-goals credited to the goalie as the last player to touch the puck. There never had been an instance of a goalie shooting the puck into an empty net in three straight seasons until now, and with Gustavsson’s goal coming so early in the season -- four days ahead of the anniversary of Mike Smith scoring for the Arizona Coyotes on Oct. 19, 2013 as the earliest in a season -- it seems possible another goalie could score before it ends; never have two goalies shot and scored in the same season.

That might be discounting how hard it is to do, however, if not so much in terms of goalies being able to shoot a puck over a crowd the length of the ice and hit an empty net, then certainly in terms of the rareness of the right opportunity.

There may be more chances for goalies to shoot at an empty net as teams pull their goalie more often, and earlier, when trailing by two goals, which often is a prerequisite for a goalie attempting to score. But the one thing each of the past three goalie goals had in common was where they scored from.

Ullmark, Jarry and Gustavsson each got to shoot from above the goal line.

"The last three years, it's always been from in front of the goal line," said Nedeljkovic, who saw Jarry's goal from the Penguins bench. "It makes life a lot easier when you can get the puck in front of the goal line as opposed to having to go behind and pull a dump-in off of the wall and turn your whole body back up ice. Even the three [goals] I've scored, they've all been from the net front, so it just makes it that much easier."

Ullmark corralled a deflected dump-in near the bottom of the right face-off circle, spinning quickly to his forehand before launching a high shot that landed inside the top of the circles at the other end. Jarry's came after a pass was tipped into the zone right to him on his forehand just outside the left of his crease, and his shot landed near the far hash marks, traveling at a top speed of 55.76 mph, covering 148.7 feet while airborne and maxing out at 16.4 feet above the ice, according to NHL EDGE statistics. Gustavsson gloved down a shot from the neutral zone off a face-off, dropped the puck and a knee to the ice and fired a shot that landed near the top of the circles at the other end before skipping in.

"That was a dream situation," New Jersey Devils goalie Jake Allen said. "Whenever a goalie can do that, you've got to tip your cap. But that was a perfect situation for Gustavsson. A slap shot from center ice, with 15 seconds left, up by two. If you don't shoot the puck there, oh man, that's a tough one. But good for him."

Allen shares Nedeljkovic's belief that improved puck-handling and shooting skills has played a role in the recent surge in goalie scoring, comparing the ability to quickly raise a puck over forecheckers on an empty-net shot to the necessity of being able to get a puck up high off the glass from behind the net for a hard rim. As someone who was using a wood stick as recently as 2018, he also points to improved stick technology since goalies converted to composite sticks as a factor.

"If you have time to lean down on it and get on one knee and get under it, you're going to get some height on it," Allen said. "Fifteen years ago, getting that up is hard. The curves aren't the same, it doesn't have the same pop. But now goalie sticks have their own custom flex and everyone can fire it. … I think everyone has the ability to do it nowadays with the technology, it's just about situation. The game happens so fast, you really need that puck above the goal line."

So will we continue to see goalie goals more often? The answer may not be about whether the goalies are capable, so much as whether opponents give them enough chances to launch pucks at empty nets from above the goal line.

"I don't know if we're going to start seeing it more often, necessarily," Nedeljkovic said. "But I won't be surprised when it does happen again."