Jesper Wallstedt was in Rockford, Ill., preparing to play for Iowa on Saturday when suddenly his start was scrapped.
He was getting promoted to the NHL and would be in the Wild’s net Sunday instead to face Vegas.
“Out of nowhere I’m [in] a car service toward Chicago,” Wallstedt said.
But Wallstedt’s entire season, not just his first game of 2024-25 with the Wild, has been a change of plans.
Initially expected to be part of a three-goalie rotation with Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury, Wallstedt was with the team after a strong training camp and looked ready for an apprenticeship before the franchise’s goalie of the future graduated to a full-time role.
The Wild made it clear they intended to get Wallstedt more NHL reps, but injuries amid a salary-cap pinch led to Wallstedt’s demotion to the minors and kept him there — a curveball that affected his psyche. The 22-year-old has been working on repairing his outlook after his struggles on the ice made the funk he was feeling fester.
“I’ve been speaking with a lot of sports psychologists to try to get my mind back and in the right spot,” Wallstedt said after making 24 saves in the Wild’s 3-2 loss to the Golden Knights at Xcel Energy Center. “Obviously, when you’re on an all-time low, it feels like there’s no way out, and you keep asking yourself what you’re doing. But I was always trusting my game. I felt like my game was in the right spot. I knew I made the team out of camp. I knew there was something that there was to build from, but it was all in my head.
“My head wasn’t in the right spot.”