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Boston Bruins: Jonas Gustavsson Playing Strong For B’s

By Andrew Thompson

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The Boston Bruins haven’t had much faith in their back up goaltenders these last few seasons. The Bruins use them for a year and then let them go. Anton Khudobin, Chad Johnson, and Niklas Svedberg all had good seasons as the number two man in Boston, but the B’s were interested in keeping them.

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Now we’ve got Jonas Gustavsson. Gustavsson has been reliable and dependable for the B’s so far this season. Currently, the Swedish netminder is 4-1-0 with a dependable .914 save percentage. His 2.2 goals against average is also excellent (not to mention better than Tuukka Rask‘s numbers by a fair margin).

The team is happy to see Gustavsson in net, and they’ve responded well by giving him dependable defense. At the moment, Gustavsson is in the position to steal the number one job away from the seven million dollar a season Rask.

“It’s very important. You can’t be riding one goalie, or relying on one goalie,” said Bruins captain Zdeno Chara about the Bruins goaltenders. “We did that last year, and it’s hard as it is in this league to be playing that many games. You need to obviously have contributions from your other goalies. I don’t want to say [Gustavsson] is number two, but he’s helping us a lot. That’s what we need, and that’s what Tuukka needs.

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    • “He needs obviously a bit of rest at times to be playing at the top of his game. That’s what he needs. Right now, I think Tuukka is playing on top of his game, and Gus is obviously making the best out of his chances.”

    Gustavsson played his first game at home against the Minnesota Wild. In his game against the Wild, Gus made 24 saves for the team, and stood strong for the team when the Wild began to play desperation hockey later in the game. The Swedish goaltender was happy with his performance, as was the team and the Boston Bruins fans.

    “It’s always a little special when you play your first [home] game. But actually when you’re out there playing, you’re so focused about what you’re doing that you’re not really thinking about it. It’s more before the game,” said Gustavsson. “No matter how good we play, there’s always going to be times when me or Tuukka [Rask], whoever’s in net, needs to make that save. Some games we need to make more saves than others. There’s always those times when we need to step up too, and that’s part of our job.”

    If Gustavsson continues to play at this level, Tuukka Rask’s job could be in jeopardy.

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