Slovakia\u2019s Cinderella run to the semifinals<\/a>, going 2-1 with a 2.67 goals-against average and .932 save percentage. On Wednesday, he backstopped the team to a quarterfinal win over Leon Draisaitl, Tim St\u00fctzle and Germany, making 25 saves on 27 shots.<\/p>\nThat from a 24-year-old undrafted goalie who has a 5-9-5 record, 3.33 GAA and .884 save percentage in the AHL this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always knew I\u2019m a good goalie,\u201d Hlavaj said. \u201cSo I never was doubting myself. But this one helps a lot. When you have (a) group of players like this, it\u2019s so much fun to play around them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hlavaj went 14-14-14 last season with a 2.85 GAA and .904 save percentage for an Iowa team that was third-worst in the AHL \u2014 then went 2-3 in the World Championship with a 1.99 GAA and .912 save percentage. That came eight months after he ran the table in the Olympic qualifier in Bratislava against Austria, Kazakhstan and Hungary, going 3-0 with a 1.67 GAA and .929 save percentage.<\/p>\n
The Wild pursued Hlavaj in the first place because of his outstanding World Championships in 2023 (.932 save percentage) and 2024 (.925 save percentage).<\/p>\n
Slovakia and Washington Capitals defenseman Martin Feh\u00e9rv\u00e1ry played with Hlavaj in one of those worlds, plus World Juniors<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was amazing in there as well, so I\u2019m not surprised,\u201d Feh\u00e9rv\u00e1ry said. \u201cHe\u2019s our backbone. We knew this was a pretty good goalie and we\u2019re just trying to help him as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slovakia and Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak, on the other hand, had never played with Hlavaj before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came here two days before the tournament started for the Olympics, and the first practice, I was like, \u2018Holy moly. He\u2019s pretty decent,\u2019\u201d Cernak said. \u201cHe\u2019s big. He\u2019s moving in the net. He\u2019s playing a big part of our team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say why he hasn\u2019t had success in the minors. He knows he\u2019s the No. 1 goalie here and knows he\u2019s getting support from our fans and the teammates and from everybody. But he wouldn\u2019t have a contract if he wasn\u2019t a good goalie. I\u2019ve never been a goalie, but with the goalie, it\u2019s probably a little harder. He just probably needs time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of the international success, that time may not come in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
The Wild signed Filip Gustavsson to a five-year extension before this season, and Jesper Wallstedt \u2014 Hlavaj\u2019s goalie partner in Iowa last season, who uncoincidentally also had terrible statistics there \u2014 is considered a big part of Minnesota\u2019s future if he\u2019s not used as trade bait before the March 6 trade deadline or this offseason.<\/p>\n
Hlavaj is a restricted free agent this offseason. He\u2019ll have a choice to make, as will the Wild.<\/p>\n
Hlavaj has been so bad in Iowa that the Wild could consider not tendering him a qualifying offer after this season. If they don\u2019t, he would become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, allowing him to sign anywhere. Plenty of teams will be looking for good goalies.<\/p>\n
He could also play hardball and try to force a trade by declining to re-sign and threatening to return to Europe.<\/p>\n
The other option is to re-sign for one year and hope that the Wild \u2014 in win-now mode, and short of prospects and draft picks after trading for Quinn Hughes, David Jiricek and Gustav Nyquist the past two years \u2014 plan to use Wallstedt as a chip.<\/p>\n
Asked point-blank if he sees a future for himself in Minnesota, Hlavaj said Wednesday, \u201cI mean, it\u2019s pretty tough there. But I think I can play in (the) NHL. It will be Minnesota or some other team. Guess we will see. But I\u2019m not looking into the future that much right now. I\u2019m just looking (at) what\u2019s gonna happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s a potential medal for Slovakia for the second time in four years.<\/p>\n
Slovakia took bronze in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, when the NHL pulled out over COVID-19 concerns. Hlavaj wasn\u2019t the goalie then but hopes to give this legit young team, full of NHL prospects, a chance to do even better.<\/p>\n
Next up, coincidentally, is the United States \u2014 a team featuring Wild stars Matt Boldy, Brock Faber and Hughes and managed by Wild general manager Bill Guerin, the man who gave Hlavaj his first NHL contract but hasn\u2019t yet given him a stint in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Could you imagine if it\u2019s a Hlavaj-backstopped Slovakia team that ends the Americans\u2019 hope of winning a gold medal?<\/p>\n
Whoa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made it to (the) semifinal, so it\u2019s awesome, and it will be even better if (we) win Friday,\u201d Hlavaj said. \u201cI don\u2019t really care what will happen (in Iowa) when I get back. I\u2019m just trying to stop the puck here, and what\u2019s gonna happen, it\u2019s gonna happen. \u2026 It\u2019s already like (a) huge success if you look at the other rosters and ours. So it\u2019s really good, but we have two more games to prove ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, this is the start of something big.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe for his North American pro career, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think his time is gonna come,\u201d Feh\u00e9rv\u00e1ry said. \u201cHe\u2019s got a pretty tough position right now with Minnesota goalies. So it\u2019s a little bit unfortunate for him, but I think he\u2019s gonna prove to everyone that he\u2019s deserving of their chance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Samuel Hlavaj\u2019s performance at these Olympics may not erase the tough season the Minnesota Wild minor-leaguer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[5,54125,161,38,5280,4,2602,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-463329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-minnesota","11":"tag-minnesota-wild","12":"tag-minnesotawild","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-olympics","15":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116097342887485335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}