Jesper Wallstedt to make NHL debut for Wild in Dallas
It's official: Jesper Wallstedt will start in goal for the Minnesota Wild Wednesday night in Dallas.
Making his NHL debut, Wallstedt could give Minnesota hockey fans a glimpse of the future as he's expected to be the Wild's No. 1 goalie in the years ahead. For now, his start could be isolated or perhaps the first of a few until Filip Gustavsson returns from injury.
Earlier this week, Wild head coach John Hynes said Gustavsson is progressing from an injury that has kept him out of the past six games. Marc-Andre Fleury will get a break Wednesday night after starting the past six games, a laboring stretch for the 39-year-old who remains tied with Patrick Roy at 551 career wins, second most in league history.
Wallstedt is one of the top goalie prospects in the NHL. He's ranked No. 3 by The Hockey Writers and No. 2 by Elite Prospects. The 21-year-old from Sweden has made 20 starts for the American Hockey League Iowa Wild this season and posted a 2.57 goals-against average and a .917 save percentage while earning two shutouts.
Minnesota selected Wallstedt 20th overall in the 2021 NHL Draft.
Wednesday's game in Dallas is scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.