For just the 18th time in NHL history, the guy scoring the goal was wearing pillows all over his body.
Going yard on Tuesday night was Minnesota Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson. Up two goals over the St Louis Blues with 12 seconds left in the game, Gustavsson got the puck and sent it soaring. Airborne through the entire neutral zone, the puck settled and stayed on course, hitting the back of the empty net, locking in the Wild’s 4-1 win and securing Gus’s place in legend.
This was his first career goal. Obviously. He also made 27 saves in the win, in case anyone even cares about that right now.
Speaking with ESPN’s Emily Kaplan after the game, Gustavsson credited Marc-Andre Fleury for planting the thought in his head.
“I came to the bench on the timeout,” Gustavsson said, “and Fleury’s like, ‘Hey, are you going to try to shoot it if you get it now that we’re up two goals?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, actually, I should shoot it.'”
(Fleury is no expert. He has not scored a goalie goal in his 21-season career.)
“I didn’t know I could shoot it that far in the air,” Gustavsson said, while admitting he does not practice shooting. “It’s great that it got in there.”
Kaplan asked Gustavsson if this goal was the first of many to come. “I should be on the power-play meetings now,” Gustavsson said with a wide smile, “so we’ll see.”
The last goalie to do the thing was Tristan Jarry, 11 months ago. Linus Ullmark came just months before that, a sort of 2020’s resurgence of the feat, which had mostly been dormant for years.
In all of NHL history, Martin “Uncle Daddy” Brodeur leads all goalies with three goals. Ron Hextall sits behind him with two. Each got one of their goalie goals during the postseason, asterisked below.
| Season | Goalie Goal Doer | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 1979–80 | Billy Smith | NYI |
| 1987–88 | Ron Hextall | PHI |
| 1998-89* | Ron Hextall | PHI |
| 1995–96 | Chris Osgood | DET |
| 1996-97* | Martin Brodeur | NJD |
| 1998–99 | Damian Rhodes | OTT |
| 1999–00 | Martin Brodeur | NJD |
| 2000–01 | Jose Theodore | MTL |
| 2001–02 | Evgeni Nabokov | SJS |
| 2003–04 | Mika Noronen | BUF |
| 2005–06 | Chris Mason | NSH |
| 2011–12 | Cam Ward | CAR |
| 2012–13 | Martin Brodeur | NJD |
| 2013–14 | Mike Smith | PHX |
| 2019–20 | Pekka Rinne | NSH |
| 2022–23 | Linus Ullmark | BOS |
| 2023–24 | Tristan Jarry | PIT |
| 2024–25 | Filip Gustavsson | MIN |
Seven of those goals did not come off actual shots, but rather from opposing goalies pushing the puck into their own net.
No Capitals goalie has ever scored a goalie goal, but on December 1, 2023, two Caps prospect goalies did it in separate games: Antoine Keller in the QMJHL and Mitchell Gibson with the Stingrays.
At the NHL level, there have never been two goalie goals in a single season. We’ll have a few hundred more chances to change that this time around.
