The 23-year-old has been more than just a reliable backup for starter Filip Gustavsson.

ST PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Wild goalie Jasper Wallstedt remains humble.

After notching his second consecutive shutout Friday night against the Anaheim Ducks, the 23-year-old netminder was heaping praise on the skaters in front of him. 

“Keeping goals low is a team result,” Wallstedt told reporters shortly after turning away 28 shots for his third career shutout.

Some of that humility could be the result of a tough 2024-25 season, where he fought the puck for the majority of the year while playing with the Wild’s AHL team in Iowa. He finished with 3.59 goals-against average (GAA) and an .879 save-percentage — both career worsts — and his first losing record since being drafted No. 20 overall in 2021.

Back in September, Wallstedt touched on those struggles and said he used his summer to turn the page on what was the toughest season of his young professional career.

“Get through it, analyze it, put it behind [me] and not think about it anymore,” he said.

There was plenty more to think about, like his first season as an NHL regular.

The starting job was set. The Wild extended fellow Swede Filip Gustavsson with a five-year, $34 million deal just before the season began, but Wallstedt was the likely candidate to take over as his backup following the retirement of future Hall of Famer Marc-André Fleury. Minnesota signed veteran Cal Petersen in the offseason as a precaution, but all hopes were that Wallstedt, once considered the top goaltending prospect in the NHL, would bounce back from last season’s struggles to be a reliable fill-in for Gustavsson.

Through the first quarter of the season, he’s exceeded expectations. The young goalie has earned points in every start and leads the league in shutouts (2) despite only playing in six games. 

“It feels good when you have him playing this well,” said Wild rookie defenseman Zeev Buium. “It makes the group a lot [more] confident. He’s incredible right now.”

Wild forward Yakov Trenin joked that they may have a little too much confidence at times, and have taken some unnecessary risks that they typically wouldn’t take with a standout young goalie behind them.

“I think it’s sometimes too much,” said Trenin. “Giving up a lot of 2-on-1s. We need to settle down our confidence a little bit on that.”

That will happen when your goalie has gone 141:09 without allowing a puck to slip by. Wallstedt has won three straight amid a 4-0-1 stretch that helped the Wild recover from their sluggish start. His 2.10 GAA and .924 save percentage rank second and third, respectively, of all goalies leaguewide with six or more starts this season.

“Obviously, a big difference from what I experienced last year,” reflected Wallstedt, who is the first rookie in Wild history to record back-to-back shutouts. “It changes the whole mood and lifestyle outside of hockey. It’s so much more fun right now going to work than it was 12 months ago.”