ST. PAUL, Minn. — Do the Minnesota Wild suddenly have a goalie controversy on their hands?

“I’ll take that any day of the week,” coach John Hynes said after “backup” Jesper Wallstedt became the first rookie in Wild history to record consecutive shutouts Saturday night during a 2-0 win over the high-octane Anaheim Ducks.

Six nights after blanking the Calgary Flames, Wallstedt made 28 saves against the NHL’s second-most potent offense and extended his save streak to 71 and shutout streak to a career-high 141 minutes, 9 seconds. He has now backstopped the Wild to points in all six of his starts (4-0-2) with a 2.10 goals-against average and .924 save percentage.

No. 1 goalie Filip Gustavsson, Sunday’s anticipated starter in a home game against the Vegas Golden Knights, is 4-7-2 this season with a 3.09 goals-against average and .896 save percentage.

“You need strong goaltending to win, and we obviously have a good tandem,” Hynes said. “I think both guys are competing, and that’s what you want when you have two guys that can play and they compete for the net.”

Marcus Johansson continued his hot play as of late with the winning goal 55 seconds into the second period. He has six goals and six assists in the past 11 games, and Matt Boldy assisted on his goal and scored an empty-netter.

The Wild are 5-1-1 in their past seven games and have beaten the Ducks in 19 of the past 20 meetings, including 10 of 11 at home.

JOJO!! 1-0 #mnwild pic.twitter.com/HH1wKe3Rv5

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) November 16, 2025

Wallstedt beaming with confidence

What a difference a year makes.

Last season, Wallstedt thought he was going to be part of a three-goalie tandem in Iowa, then was devastated when salary-cap issues caused him to spend the majority of the season in Iowa. He had a third consecutive tough year there, going 9-14-4 with a 3.59 goals-against average and .879 save percentage and dealing with three separate injuries.

Now he looks locked in playing behind NHL-quality players.

“It’s obviously a big difference from what I experienced last year and changes the whole mood and my whole lifestyle outside of hockey as well,” said Wallstedt, who turned 23 Friday. “It’s so much more fun right now going to work than it was 12 months ago. With that said, like I’ve said, it’s not just me. It’s about this team as well.”

Wallstedt was reading pucks perfectly against the Ducks and had to contend with too many odd-man rushes in the second period. But as he said, “Keeping goals low is a team result.”

There’s no doubt the Wild did a tremendous job neutralizing Anaheim’s impressive speed, and the team, as a whole, has done a much better job defending the past few weeks. It has allowed four goals in the past four games.

But you could tell how badly Wallstedt wanted to record his third career shutout with 31 seconds left when he threw every inch of his body into Ryan Strome’s chance from the goalmouth 26 seconds after Boldy made it 2-0.

“When you score an empty-netter, it kind of a little bit feels like, ‘OK, we’re close now,’” Wallstedt said. “And then an opportunity like that comes up. Sometimes I gotta step up as well, and that was my time. Obviously, it felt good.”

JESPER WALLSTEDT SHUTS THE DOOR AGAIN pic.twitter.com/r5aBpOGrQj

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) November 16, 2025

There’s no doubt Wallstedt committed himself off the ice this offseason to come to camp in better shape and with a better frame of mind.

“It was a tough season for him for numerous reasons, but it made him stronger,” Hynes said. “He took the lessons out of it. He committed himself this summer. And there’s a difference in the way that he practices and the way that he conducts himself away from the rink. They’re little things that make a big difference. Sometimes young guys go through struggles, and it’s OK as long as you learn the lessons and take the right actions to come out the other side.”

Mixed bag of special teams

The Wild have been riding one of the league’s top power plays this season, but against the Ducks, they went 0 for 7 with 11 shots on goal. It was surprising considering Anaheim entered with the 25th-ranked penalty kill (28th on the road) and goalie Petr Mrazek had a 4.56 goals-against average and .865 save percentage.

The Ducks took 12 minutes worth of high-sticking penalties, including double minors against Danila Yurov and Daemon Hunt, who have drawn four power plays the past two games.

“It’s frustrating, for sure,” said defenseman Zeev Buium. “I mean, especially in a game like that, you have so many power plays, so many opportunities to kind of put the game away in a sense. If we score on two or three of those, it’s a different game. I mean, it sucks to not score on the power play. We had our looks here and there, but they had a good kill.

“They were aggressive, they pressed hard and I think they had the puck a little bit more than we would ever want any penalty kill to have.”

But while the Wild’s power play was disappointing for a change, the Wild got two huge third-period penalty kills and now have extinguished 17 of the opponent’s past 18 power plays.

It helped that the Wild got some huge clears and won 33 of 57 faceoffs, including two big ones of the penalty kill (Joel Eriksson Ek went 14 of 27 and leads the league with 212 faceoffs won and 411 taken).

“It felt good when I was sitting in the box that they got it done and PK is trending in the right direction,” said Johansson. “We’re not going to kill all of them, but we’ve been trending in the right direction and it’s fun to see, because it can win a lot of games for you.”

Yurov gets promoted, clipped up high

With Marco Rossi week to week with a lower-body injury, Ryan Hartman moved up to the top line with Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello and the rookie Yurov was elevated to the third line with Liam Ohgren (one shot in 6:06 of ice time) and Vinnie Hinostroza.

Yurov missed a chunk of the first period after getting clipped near his right eye by Mason McTavish, who had six minutes’ worth of high-sticking penalties in the period. The Wild couldn’t convert on the four-minute power play drawn by Yurov, who returned to the game late in the period.

Danila Yurov takes a high stick to the face pic.twitter.com/mP9a6gc2fA

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) November 15, 2025

The Wild continue to slowly give Yurov, a solid KHL scorer, more and more responsibility. Hynes didn’t really want to break up his line with Marcus Foligno and Yakov Trenin, especially because the line had been effective the past three games.

“I just keep giving (Yurov) more opportunities and working with him,” Hynes said. “I think his game’s growing. And he’ll get a little bit of power-play time. Marco has a lot of roles on the team that now we’re going to have to fill. So we’ll see if we can give Danila what he can handle, but continue to inch him along and progress him as long as he continues to progress.”

With Rossi out, the Wild considered pursuing free agent David Kämpf, who terminated his contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday. But with Nico Sturm expected to return in a couple weeks and the Wild pursuing trades, they opted not to make Kämpf an offer. He signed a one-year deal with Vancouver on Saturday.

Ohgren was recalled because Vladimir Tarasenko sustained a lower-body injury in Friday’s practice. He is listed day to day. Tyler Pitlick was also rushed to Minnesota on Saturday, but wound up not playing because Zuccarello gutted through despite coming down with an illness.

“He was on IVs prior to the game,” Hynes said. “So, I give him a lot of credit to gut it out to play. This morning, it was all quiet and then all of a sudden, my phone started buzzing and it was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’ But I credit him a lot for digging in, for the team to be able to play through a sickness.”

Defenseman Jake Middleton also returned to the lineup after missing the previous two games with illness.