Jesper Wallstedt has spent most of his career sharing the load, but right now the Minnesota Wild are asking him to carry the net by himself. For the first time, the crease is his, and he’s looking every bit like a goalie ready to run with it.
That’s a big shift for a player who has lived in tandems for years, from his days as the Wall of Lulea in Sweden to the Iowa Wild in the AHL, where he topped out at 45 starts in the 2023-24 season. With Filip Gustavsson recovering from offseason hip surgery, Wallstedt is the clear starter in Minnesota for now. Gustavsson should be back in a month or two, but Wallstedt’s performance in this stretch will go a long way toward defining how the Wild handle the position going forward.
This isn’t really a brand-new audition. Wallstedt already forced his way into the conversation late last season, when Gustavsson stumbled to an .853 save percentage over his final nine games.
That opened the door for Wallstedt to take over in the playoffs, and he made the most of it, starting 10 of Minnesota’s 11 postseason games and helping the franchise win its first playoff round since 2015. If he keeps this up while Gustavsson is out, he’ll do more than just buy time - he’ll strengthen his grip on the job.
Through two games, the start has been almost ideal. Wallstedt is 2-0 with a .957 save percentage, which puts him sixth in the NHL in this opening week.
The numbers pop, but the bigger story is how steady he’s looked doing it. There’s no panic in his game, no sign of the weight pressing down on him.
That matters because Wallstedt already had one ugly stretch that could have knocked him off course. In the 2024-25 season, by his own admission, he collapsed under the pressure.
He was expected to begin moving into the NHL as a third goalie, but Minnesota couldn’t keep him around with Gustavsson and Marc-André Fleury in the mix. Once he went back to Iowa and faced a porous defense, everything unraveled.
"It was like I hadn't played hockey before," the goalie said.
And yet, just one season later, the picture looked very different. In the playoffs, Wallstedt absorbed a brutal Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche, when he allowed eight goals.
Plenty of goalies would have spiraled there. Instead, after a one-game reset, he posted three solid games - with two losses - and finished with a .922 save percentage in that stretch.
The rise hasn’t gone unnoticed. NHL Network ranked him ninth among goalies this summer, and a ranking from The Athletic, put together by NHL goalies and coaches, placed him in the league’s second tier. In a year, his name moved from potential bust territory into the same conversation as Jeremy Swayman, Jake Oettinger, and Logan Thompson.
That jump also comes with a real business-side pressure point. Wallstedt becomes a restricted free agent in the summer, while Gustavsson has the security of being in Year 1 of a five-year deal and carrying a no-move clause that runs through July 1, 2028.
Wallstedt is the more movable piece, and as a goalie who will soon be 24, he could also be the kind of trade chip Minnesota would consider in its long-running search for a No. 1 Center.
So if Wallstedt wants to stick in Minnesota, the path is simple: keep the No. 1 goalie role he grabbed last spring. This stretch as the uncontested starter is his best chance to lock down the net for good.
He’s not doing it alone, of course. The Wild defense, led by Jonas Brodin’s ageless brilliance, has helped set the table.
But Wallstedt has still been the one finishing the job. Per Evolving-Hockey, he has allowed just two goals on 4.78 expected goals, which leaves him eighth in the NHL with 2.78 Goals Saved Above Expected.
Since the start of last season, including the playoffs, his 26.79 GSAx ranks 15th in the league, ahead of Connor Hellebuyck, Linus Ullmark, and Oettinger, and well ahead of Gustavsson’s 15.17.
He’s been especially sharp when Minnesota is short-handed. Among 57 goalies who have faced at least 100 shorthanded shots since the start of last season, Wallstedt leads the NHL with a .915 save percentage.
Anthony Stolarz is second at .901. Scott Wedgewood is just under .900.
The league average sits at .853.
That’s a tiny sample in goalie terms - 37 games, to be exact - but it’s still enough to make you wonder how high the ceiling really is. Even if some regression is coming, Wallstedt looks like a difference-maker on the penalty kill, and the Wild have already gone 7-for-7 there in their first two games with him in net.
There are still 82 games to go, and no one is pretending this ride won’t have its bumps. But if the first two starts are any clue, Wallstedt is ready for the responsibility. With Gustavsson out, Brock Faber injured indefinitely, and Minnesota still making its pitch for a Quinn Hughes, the goalie situation is one area where the Wild may already have found a real answer.
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Tyler Pitlick was recalled from Iowa to help fill the gap, giving the Wild another experienced option who has spent time in both the NHL and AHL. Now in his second year with Minnesota, Pitlick gives the coaching staff a familiar plug-in as it waits to see how long Foligno is unavailable. [Read more 🡒]