Goalie Gets Candid

The postgame routine in the Minnesota Wild locker room is almost always the same. While players hang out in a back area, one by one the three or four guys who are designated to speak to the media will appear for interviews. The exchanges are almost always pleasant, but rarely insightful.

It’s the way hockey players operate. Never wanting to talk about themselves and much more comfortable with either lamenting not getting pucks deep or praising the team’s ability to be aggressive on the forecheck.

This is what made Jesper Wallstedt’s postgame comments on Sunday so surprising and refreshing.

Having stopped 24 of 27 shots in a 3-2 loss to Vegas in his season debut, Wallstedt sat at his locker stall and opened up about his early-season struggles with Iowa of the American Hockey League. There were no cliches and no attempt to put a happy spin on things. Instead, the 22-year-old talked about his head not being in the right spot, how he lost the ability to stop the puck and his quest to get back to being the guy the Wild consider their goalie of the future.

From afar, Wallstedt’s rough start in Iowa made a lot of sense. He had signed a two-year, $4.4 million contract extension only days before Minnesota’s season opened, and the expectation was that he would spend much of his time with the NHL club. That created a crowd in goal — Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury would be the main guys — but that appeared to be the plan.

However, the Wild’s salary-cap issues and the incredible bounce back of Gustavsson landed Wallstedt in the AHL before the end of October. He made his debut with Iowa on Oct. 19 in San Jose and gave up five goals on 42 shots. The next day, facing San Jose again, Wallstedt allowed seven goals on 25 shots in 40 minutes.

The goals-against floodgates opened
Wallstedt’s struggles were easy to attribute to his disappointment with being sent back to the minors for a third season. But after bouncing back with a .918 save percentage in his next four games, Wallstedt allowed an alarming number of goals in three of his next four games.

Jesper Wallstedt made 24 saves against Vegas on Dec. 15 at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

He surrendered five goals on 21 shots in a loss to Grand Rapids on Nov. 7; eight on 39 in a loss to Texas; and five more on 29 shots in another loss to Grand Rapids on Nov. 24.

“I think the beginning, right after I got sent down, it was more that the plan changed that I was expecting,” said Wallstedt, the 20th pick in the first round of the 2021 draft by the Wild. “But after that, you just gotta drop that behind. I think after that it was more that ‘OK why am I not saving a puck in games? Why am I giving up seven goals? Why am I giving up eight goals?’ It was just like I couldn’t save a puck. It was like I hadn’t played hockey before. It didn’t feel like my game was wrong, but it felt like my head wasn’t there, and then I’m the one that gives myself the hardest criticism. So, I think I was just pushing myself down the rabbit hole as well.”

This is nothing new for goalies. They play one of the loneliest positions in team sports. Standing in front of a net with a flying piece of vulcanized rubber speeding their way at 100 miles per hour. It’s easy for goalies to get inside their own heads.

Wallstedt said he confronted his struggles by speaking with sports psychologists to “try to get my mind back and in the right spot.” He also worked with Richard Bachman, a former NHL goalie who is now the goalie coach in Iowa. Wild goalie coach Frederic Chabot showed up to watch as Wallstedt stopped 23 shots in a shutout against Rockford on Dec. 11.

That was Wallstedt’s second consecutive strong outing, following a 22-save performance in a 5-2 win over Milwaukee. Those two games were enough for the Wild to recall Wallstedt to start against the Golden Knights after Gustavsson was lost to a lower-body injury that isn’t considered serious.

Wallstedt, who went 2-1-0 with a 3.01 goals-against average and .897 save percentage in three starts with Minnesota last season, said he learned from what was essentially a two-week slump.

‘I had no answers’
Asked how scary it was to feel like he couldn’t stop a puck, Wallstedt said: “It’s very hard. That’s my whole job, and it’s something I’ve done since I was 9, 10 years old, and now I’m like, ‘OK, I forgot the ability (of) how to stop pucks.’ But also I knew it was my game. It wasn’t the game plan. I know that’s working, but it was all in my head. I was not proceeding with the right thoughts in my head, and I probably wasn’t in the right headspace.”

Wallstedt acknowledged he needed to ask for help in order to get his game back — a sign of strength for someone still so young.

Jesper Wallstedt struggled this season after getting sent down to Iowa. He surrendered 21 goals in a four-game stretch in November for the Iowa Wild. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“I had no answers,” he said. “That’s why I needed people around me to help me get back there. I was so lost in my own mind and my own game where I was at in my own thoughts and everything. Everything became hockey, even outside the rink.

“I think overthinking got to me and basically all the people around me that helped me … a couple things were just getting back to the basics, trusting your game, knowing you’re here for a reason, knowing that you can do it. But also just like small key words during a game, think about your breathing, think about (the) next puck, think about trying to pick up the spin on the puck when they’re shooting. Just small stuff that can make you just clean your head and focus on the puck.”

Wallstedt knows that when Gustavsson returns, he will be headed back to Iowa. He has a goals-against average (3.77) and save percentage (.874) to improve on. But Wallstedt’s confident his struggles are behind him and that he will have no issues stopping pucks in Minnesota or Iowa.

“Hopefully, (I’ll) play as many games as possible (in Minnesota) and prove that those first months were not something I’m going to look back at anymore,” he said. “I’m just going to look forward and look towards the future. Make sure I’ve improved from that and learned something that I can keep with me for my whole career.”