Wild 2025-26 Report Cards: Jesper Wallstedt

The Minnesota Wild have started their offseason, and although their postseason ended at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche quite abruptly, their season showed a lot of growth in the right direction. When the season ends, it means it’s time for grade reports to begin, and each Wild player will receive a grade. 

We’ll take a look at the regular season, the postseason, and then average those for their overall grade for the season. The first player up will be the one who stole the show in the postseason and played his heart out to give the team a chance to win: rookie goaltender Jesper Wallstedt. We’ll start with his regular season and move on from there. 

Wallstedt’s First Full Season 

Prior to this season, Jesper Wallstedt had played a couple of games in each of the two seasons prior, and it was a bit of a rough transition for him. He had some struggles with his game mentally, but persevered and came back stronger this season, ready to prove himself, and that he did. He stepped up and showed the skill that everyone hoped for when they drafted him, as well as his confidence level being where it needed to be. 

This regular season, he played in 35 games and started 33 of them. He had a record of 18-9-6, which had him in the top four among rookie goaltenders this season. The other three had similar records but also played in more games than Wallstedt throughout the season; he had the best save percentage of the four with .916. His goals against average of 2.61 was also the best of the four. 

While some of that was because he played fewer games than the others, he did see the same number of shots as the goaltender in third place, which was Artūrs Šilovs, and was just 167 shots behind the goaltender in first, which was Jakub Dobeš. Although Dobeš made quite a few more saves, Wallstedt did have more saves than Šilovs. 

Something that did stand out amongst all goaltenders, rookies, and veterans was Wallstedt’s 4 shutouts, which had him tied with seven other goaltenders for third place in the league, along with his tandem partner, Filip Gustavsson. For the overall season, while Wallstedt had his rookie struggles, he had a decent season and was even able to register an assist. Plus, his play earned him a spot in the net for the postseason. 

Overall, he earned an A- for his rookie season, and for some, that may seem high, but he is a rookie and did quite well for his first full season. For some, that also might seem low, but that’s because he hasn’t reached his true potential yet and has room to grow his game, which he has acknowledged. 

“I think there’s a lot. I think I can always improve. I’m only 23. There’s a lot of stuff to improve at. I think it’s hard to say right after now. The loss is still sore, and you’re kind of just looking at the last one or two games still. But I think over the summer, I’ll obviously go through some more stuff and analyze my game and what was successful and what I can do better at. But I think there’s a lot of stuff to always improve on, and I can always get better at everything,” Wallstedt said to the media in his end-of-the-season interview when asked about work in the offseason. 

Wallstedt’s Postseason Surprise 

Before the final couple of weeks of the regular season, the Wild were firmly in a playoff spot, and it looked like Gustavsson would be their starting goaltender. However, in the final couple of games of the regular season leading into the postseason, he struggled to find his game. The Wild elected to go with Wallstedt instead, as he had the hot hand to end the regular season.