Jesper Wallstedt will start Game 1 for the Wild on Saturday in Dallas, a switch John Hynes said comes down to the team’s hottest goalie. The 23-year-old will get the opening netminding assignment against the Stars, with Filip Gustavsson moved to the backup role for the first game of the first-round series.
Hynes said he made the call after weighing Wallstedt’s recent run against Gustavsson’s late-season slide. Wallstedt finished the regular season 18-9-6 with a.916 save percentage, second-best in the league, and closed on a 4-1 run. He also went 9-3-4 against playoff teams and posted an NHL-best.931 save percentage in those games, a stretch that helped persuade Hynes to ride the stronger hand.
For Wallstedt, the assignment brings him back to the building where his NHL debut came on Jan. 1 against the Stars. It will be his first non-preseason game against Dallas since that night, and it arrives after a season that changed his standing in the room. He entered the year as Gustavsson’s backup after Marc-Andre Fleury retired, then put together a 10-game point streak, won seven straight from Nov. 7 to Dec. 2 and stacked up four shutouts during that run. His 175-minute shutout streak was the longest by an NHL rookie since 2015, and he set the franchise record for rookie wins.
Gustavsson, 27, had the longer regular-season résumé and played in net for most of the Wild-Star series in 2023, when Minnesota was eliminated in six games. He also signed a five-year, $34 million extension before the season and finished 28-15-6, but he dropped four of his last six starts and gave up at least four goals in all but one of them. That contrast is what made the decision so delicate, Hynes said after telling both goalies before Friday’s practice that Wallstedt would get the start.
Hynes described the meeting with Gustavsson as a very good one and said Wallstedt’s response was what the staff wanted to see. The coach pointed to Wallstedt’s overall body of work, his current form and the track record that has built behind it. The Wild are betting that the goalie who finished the season strongest can carry that momentum into a series that starts with a test in Dallas.
