The Minnesota Wild announced today that they have extended rookie goalie Jesper Wallstedt’s contract for two more years. Wallstedt is currently in the last season of his ELC and has signed a contract worth $2.2 million per year through the 2026-27 season. This contract extension is a one-way contract and helps keep cost certainty as the Wild come out from under the weight of the $15 million of dead money next season.
Wallstedt has played most of his North American career with the Iowa Wild, being pulled up to play 3 NHL games with Minnesota during the 2023-24 season. The Wild drafted Wallstedt in the first round of the 2021 NHL Draft at 20th overall. The future star goalie is 40-34-12 during his career with the Iowa Wild with .909% save percentage. Even behind a weak team last season with a large number of players pulled up to the NHL to fill in the gaps of the injury-riddled Minnesota team, Wallstedt managed to make an impression still and be named the Howie’s Hockey Tap, AHL Player of the Week twice. One of those was for going 2-0-0 during the week of November 5, 2023 with a .950 save percentage. The other was for the week of December 3, 2023 where he went 2-0-0 with a 1.50 goals against average and a .965 save percentage.
The Wild are starting the 2024-25 season with three goalies on their roster, Marc-Andre Fleury, Filip Gustavsson, and Wallstedt. While the exact details of the rotation is unclear, the Wild certainly want to take advantage of each goalie and their strengths.
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