Minnesota Wild Recall Young Goalie for Playoffs

The Minnesota Wild will start their 2025 NHL Playoff journey LATE Sunday night vs the Vegas Golden Knights, a puck drop that is scheduled for 9 p.m. CDT. If you haven’t watched the last few games, the Wild team that takes the ice in Sin City later this weekend will look a lot different than what you remember.

Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov are back on the ice, after both top forwards missed more than a month with lower body injuries. On defense, Jake Middleton and Jared Spurgeon are both expected to be active, after late-season injury scares of their own.

But not only are the Minnesota Wild fully healthy, on paper, but the blue line seems likely to get a major skill upgrade, as well. Former University of Denver superstar Zeev Buium — the No. 12 overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft and current No. 2 overall prospect in all of hockey (The Athletic) — has been practicing with the team for a few days… and he’s been reportedly running the Wild’s top power play unit.

Minnesota Wild recall top goalie prospect Jesper Wallstedt

Zeev isn’t the only top prospect traveling with the team to Vegas this weekend. On Friday, the MN Wild called up another valuable youngster, this time from Iowa, goalie Jesper Wallstedt, who will be the team’s emergency net-minder for round one.

#mnwild have recalled Jesper Wallstedt to be third goalie in playoffs

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) April 18, 2025

Jesper Wallstedt has had a very difficult year of professional hockey. The Minnesota Wild entered the season with a three-goalie rotation between Filip Gustavsson, Marc-Andre Fleury and Wallstedt. Within just a week or two, however, Gustavsson had cemented himself as the clear No. 1, ahead of both the HOFer and top prospect.

That put President of Hockey Operations Bill Guerin in a pickle. Wallstedt needed reps in net and it was looking increasingly obvious that those opportunities were going to be few and far between in the NHL.

Tough year for Wild’s top goalie prospect

So, Billy made the only logical move and sent Jesper Wallstedt down to Iowa. Unfortunately, that is not where the 22-year-old wanted to be… and his play showed it. Wallstedt — who has been up and down from Iowa a couple times since his early-season demotion — allowed four or more goals in four of his first seven AHL games (starting Nov. 7), including a brutal 8 goals allowed showing Nov. 16 vs the Texas Stars.

Related: Minnesota Wild Goalie Prospect Takes Tumble Down Prospect Rankings

When the dust settled on his 2024-25 season, Jesper Wallstedt played 27 AHL games, posting a career-worst 3.59 GAA and .879 save percentage. Thankfully, the season eventually ended. Now, he gets to hang out with Gus and Flower, while he tries to regain his confidence going into a crucial offseason.

JESPER WALLSTEDT WENT FULL MARC ANDRE FLEURY pic.twitter.com/xOyvo51qtn

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) October 14, 2023

Going forward, the Minnesota Wild hope and pray that this awful year for the NHL’s former No. 1 goalie prospect was just a speed bump in the road to what previously looked like an incredibly bright future.