Wild emergency recall Dylan Ferguson; Filip Gustavsson out with illness

The Minnesota Wild recalled goaltender Dylan Ferguson on an emergency basis Saturday, per The Athletic’s Joe Smith. The transaction comes after Wild head coach John Hynes confirmed that Wild starting netminder Filip Gustavsson is out of the lineup due to an illness.

Facing the Central Division rival Nashville Predators on Saturday, Ferguson will serve as backup to Marc-Andre Fleury. On the season, the 40-year-old goaltender has made 14 appearances in which he has posted a 9-3-1 record with a .910 save percentage and 2.54 goals-against average.

It has been a whirlwind month for Ferguson, who signed a one-year, two-way contract with Minnesota in early January, with the club’s host of injuries creating salary cap challenges and limiting who it could recall from the AHL’s Iowa Wild.

Ferguson originally joined Iowa in September on a minor-league pact after being released from a training camp tryout with the Vancouver Canucks. With Iowa, Ferguson has found the win column three times in nine outings coupled with an .881 save percentage and 3.70 goals-against average. The 26-year-old British Columbia native has also made a lone appearance this season with the ECHL’s Iowa Heartlanders, a 31-save effort en route to a 1-0 shutout victory over the Bloomington Bison.

A 2017 seventh-round selection by the Dallas Stars, Ferguson has made three appearances at the NHL level, counting his debut with the Vegas Golden Knights during the 2017-18 campaign plus two outings with the Ottawa Senators in 2022-23 in which he has combined for a 1-1-0 record with a .929 save percentage and 2.81 goals-against average.

For Gustavsson, he joins an extensive injured reserve in Minnesota that already counts star left winger Kirill Kaprizov and captain Jared Spurgeon. Entering Saturday’s showdown against the Predators, the Wild sit second in the Central Division with a 27-14-4 record and 58 points.