Jesper Wallstedt signed a two-year, $4.4 million contract (average annual value of $2.2 million) with the Minnesota Wild on Monday that begins with the 2025-26 season.
"This was my goal coming in," Wallstedt said. "Hopefully I had a good camp. Practices have felt pretty good and I've just been loving every day to show up here and compete and be(ing) around these guys has been awesome, and obviously something that I want to do. I want to be here every day, so this is definitely a goal that I wanted to do, but keep on working. Take it day by day and continue to develop."
The 21-year-old goalie made his NHL debut Jan. 10. He went 2-1-0 with a 3.01 goals-against average and .897 save percentage in three games and made 24 saves for his first NHL shutout, a 4-0 win at the Chicago Blackhawks on April 7. He was twice named American Hockey League Player of the Week while playing for Iowa last season, when he was 22-19-6 with a 2.70 GAA, .910 save percentage and two shutouts in 45 games.
"I control what I can control and I focus on what I can do," Wallstedt said. "I put in the effort that makes their job harder. For sure, I want to be here and hopefully make a case that I'm not the guy they’re sending down ... if that situation would happen. Hopefully, I could put in the effort and put up the results that they feel that they want to keep me instead of someone else."
Wallstedt, selected by Minnesota in the first round (No. 20) of the 2021 NHL Draft, won a bronze medal with Sweden at the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship, and took part in the 2021 WJC and 2019 Hlinka Gretzky Cup.
Minnesota also has goalies Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury on its roster heading into its regular-season opener against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; BSWIX, BSN).
“It’s always going to be a complicated answer because we have three guys,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “I would say, right now, we have three goalies on the team. Really, when we went into training camp, we talked about if all three play -- and all three have played well -- we’re going to have some difficult decisions to make.
“The good thing is when time’s on your side, you can use it and we don’t have to make a decision right now, so we’ll start the season with those three guys and, again, I think you have to let some things play out.”
NHL.com independent correspondent Jessi Pierce contributed to this report
