Jesper Wallstedt will make his first home start in the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Wednesday when the Minnesota Wild host the Dallas Stars in Game 3 of the Western Conference First Round at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul.
The 23-year-old has already carried a heavy load in the series. Wallstedt has started Games 1 and 2 for Minnesota, allowing four goals on 59 shots. He stopped 28 of 29 shots in Saturday’s 6-1 win at American Airlines Center, then gave up three goals on 31 shots in Monday’s 4-2 loss as Dallas evened the series at 1-1.
That puts the Wild in the kind of spot that can shape a playoff round. In the 245 of 369 times a best-of-7 series tied 1-1 has been decided by the Game 3 winner, that team has gone on to take the series, a rate of 66.4 percent. For Minnesota, the next step is not just about getting better goaltending. It is about taking advantage of home ice after splitting two games on the road.
John Hynes went with Wallstedt over Filip Gustavsson to open the series, a decision that has held through two games. Wallstedt has six postseason starts in all and owns a 4.16 goals-against average and.847 save percentage in the series so far, numbers that underline both the workload and the pressure he is carrying into his first playoff appearance in St. Paul.
Special teams have already moved the series. Minnesota went 2-for-4 on the power play and 3-for-4 on the penalty kill in Game 1, while Dallas went 2-for-5 on the power play and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill in Game 2. Each club won the game when it won the special teams battle, which makes every whistle and every minor penalty matter even more on Wednesday.
The Wild also may be without Mats Zuccarello, who is a game-time decision because of an upper-body injury. He had assists on both of Joel Eriksson Ek’s power-play goals in Game 1, then missed Game 2. Without him, Minnesota loses one of the players who can make the power play flow cleanly against a Dallas team that has already shown it can punish mistakes.
John Hynes said Wallstedt has looked solid and confident, with strong puck tracking, rebound control and the ability to make big stops through his competitiveness and positioning. He also said the young goalie has been highly competitive while still playing his own game.
Dallas, meanwhile, is expected to lean into the physical side of the matchup. Hynes said the Stars are likely to make a concerted effort to play the body on Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov, two players he described as highly competitive and too skilled to be taken out of a game that way. Boldy had five shots on goal and 10 shot attempts in Game 2, while Kaprizov was limited to two shots and five attempts, a sign that the Stars were already working to push them away from the middle of the ice.
Game 3 now looks like more than a turn in the schedule. It is the first chance for Wallstedt to show whether the road work that brought him here can hold when the pressure shifts home, and the team that wins the night will put itself in the position that has decided most tied series before it.