They celebrate Christmas on Dec. 24 in Sweden, so when Jesper Wallstedt got a call from his home country the next day, it was not interrupting any holiday plans. And it turned out to be one of the best presents the Minnesota Wild goalie has gotten in his 23 years.
One of the bigger surprises announced on Friday for next month’s Winter Olympics was the inclusion of Wallstedt among the trio that will stop pucks for Team Sweden. Wild veteran goalie Filip Gustavsson and New Jersey Devils goalie Jacob Markstrom are the other two.
“I think I joked with my dad maybe two or three years ago, ‘Is it weird to have Olympics as a goal in a few years?’,” Wallstedt recalled following the team’s morning skate in Anaheim on Friday. “I remember after my first year in the AHL thinking that maybe I’d try to make a push for this.”
Ottawa goalie Linus Ullmark, who was predicted by many to make the roster, will instead get a three-week break in February.
“I told my girlfriend that we were going to try to book (flights) to go to Hawaii or something,” Wallstedt said, with a smile. “Obviously, that’s not happening now.”
Wallstedt, 23, has made his case on the ice this season, forcefully. His numbers are superlative, including a 11-2-3 mark as the Wild’s goalie of record, the top save percentage (.928) in the NHL and the league lead in shutouts with four. And he is playing the position with a mixture of calm and boldness that has him in the conversation for the NHL’s rookie of the year.
This comes following a 2024-25 season which he admits was one to forget. He started the year with the Wild, briefly, as part of a three-goalie rotation. Then, he was sent down to Iowa where he struggled, both on the ice and psychologically.
His play in November and December is a big part of the reason the Wild have rebounded from a rough start to be one of the top three teams in the NHL at the halfway point of the schedule.
“Obviously, we’re in a good spot, but we’re not happy. We’re not satisfied yet,” Wallstedt said after the team’s shootout loss in San Jose to close out 2025. “There’s still work to be done. And we could always improve, we could always get better. But I like the spot where we’re in. But with that, we could always get better.”
While the Wild will have four players on Team Sweden next month, some were disappointed that it was not five. Marcus Johansson has been an offensive force in Minnesota this season at age 35, with a dozen goals at the halfway point. Despite those efforts, he was not named to his second Swedish Olympic team, having represented his country at the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia.
Johansson learned of the snub not long before the Wild played in Vegas on Dec. 29, then scored just seconds into the game for Minnesota.
“Very disappointed. It’s obviously something you work hard for and dream about,” Johansson said on Friday. “It’s tough to swallow.”
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