Article: Jesper Wallstedt Feels Ready for Wild Backup Role

[Thomas Williams]

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[Pewterschmidt]

Best case scenario wall-e proves he can be a #1 giving bill options with Gus BEFORE bill over pays and over terms Gus with a lifetime NMC

[Citizen Strife]

Wally and Gus both look decent to start the season.  The major thing is 2-3 goals per game and mitigating the weird 4-7 goal ones that are bound to happen.

[0 Stanley Cups]

Wally would need to have an unbelievable season for the Wild to let Gus depart via trade or UFA, which seems unlikely at this point.  If the Wild are entering the win now window of contending, we're going to need both Gus/Wally, but especially Gus, you don't roll the dice on your number true 1 goalie option, letting a 27 yr old go in favor of an unproven 22 yr old.  If Gus starts well enough, I hope the Wild extend him before Xmas.  After investing in $17M in KK97, Gus is looking like the Wild's best option as starter for the next couple years.

[MrCheatachu]

1 hour ago, Citizen Strife said:

Wally and Gus both look decent to start the season.  The major thing is 2-3 goals per game and mitigating the weird 4-7 goal ones that are bound to happen.

Cal Petersen looked decent to start the season, the only guy between the pipes that stood out in a bad way was Hlavaj.

[MrCheatachu]

2 hours ago, 0 Stanley Cups said:

Wally would need to have an unbelievable season for the Wild to let Gus depart via trade or UFA, which seems unlikely at this point.  If the Wild are entering the win now window of contending, we're going to need both Gus/Wally, but especially Gus, you don't roll the dice on your number true 1 goalie option, letting a 27 yr old go in favor of an unproven 22 yr old.  If Gus starts well enough, I hope the Wild extend him before Xmas.  After investing in $17M in KK97, Gus is looking like the Wild's best option as starter for the next couple years.

The wild defense has had a habit of making good goalies look great.  

We've never had a guy like Oettinger/Vasilevskiy/Hellebuyck/Bobrowsky who have nights when they're unsolveable.  We've made good goalies look great by an aggressive backcheck with defensive minded forwards and employing guys on the back-end who are defense-first guys who don't get caught cheating in the offensive zone.

I remember about a year ago on this board, there were plenty of voices who wanted to jettison GusBus into the sea after his '23-'24 season

[Imyourhuckleberry]

-- Athletic Quotes today --

Quote

Yurov has steadily progressed during camp but hasn’t produced much offensively or had a “wow” moment. Hunter Haight had a really good camp, but he’s probably going back to AHL Iowa as long as Nico Sturm is healthy. Sturm, who has dealt with a back issue during the preseason, practiced fully Thursday and is expected to make his debut Friday.

Quote

 

Jack Johnson, on a PTO, isn’t in the lineup again Friday, which could be an indication that they Wild have decided they aren’t signing him, assuming Brodin doesn’t have any setbacks. The Wild could call up Matt Kiersted or Carson Lambos as a seventh D if they wanted.

An interesting wrinkle is that former Wild prospect Daemon Hunt, sent to the Columbus Blue Jackets in the Jiricek trade in November, was placed on waivers by the Blue Jackets on Thursday. Will Minnesota put in a claim?

 

 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

22 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

I remember about a year ago on this board, there were plenty of voices who wanted to jettison GusBus into the sea after his '23-'24 season

Which had a bit to do with Addison & Mermis being really poor NHL defenders and Gus struggling with those guys on the ice. Healthy defense makes a big difference, and Spurgeon out caused an enormous drop off that season. Merrill wasn't dynamic, but he's way above Mermis and people were routinely unhappy with Merrill's hockey skills.

I was one of the voices highly supportive of Gus. He was taking the vast majority of tough matchups against high quality offenses that year, and battling against some awful defense and some bad bounces.

[0 Stanley Cups]

1 hour ago, MrCheatachu said:

The wild defense has had a habit of making good goalies look great.  

We've never had a guy like Oettinger/Vasilevskiy/Hellebuyck/Bobrowsky who have nights when they're unsolveable.  We've made good goalies look great by an aggressive backcheck with defensive minded forwards and employing guys on the back-end who are defense-first guys who don't get caught cheating in the offensive zone.

I remember about a year ago on this board, there were plenty of voices who wanted to jettison GusBus into the sea after his '23-'24 season

GusBus would be highly sought after in a very very thin goalie market this offseason.  

[B1GKappa97]

6 hours ago, 0 Stanley Cups said:

Wally would need to have an unbelievable season for the Wild to let Gus depart via trade or UFA, which seems unlikely at this point.  If the Wild are entering the win now window of contending, we're going to need both Gus/Wally, but especially Gus, you don't roll the dice on your number true 1 goalie option, letting a 27 yr old go in favor of an unproven 22 yr old.  If Gus starts well enough, I hope the Wild extend him before Xmas.  After investing in $17M in KK97, Gus is looking like the Wild's best option as starter for the next couple years.

Depends on how they each look this year. If Gus looks like he did two seasons ago, then obviously you wouldn't want to sign him to a long-term deal so you get inconsistent results. If Wallstedt looks likes he's ready to potentially take over full-time, maybe they decide they'd rather find a cheaper backup for the future than commit $6M+ to Gus and use most of that chunk on a different position/player.

Won't know until the season starts! 

[B1GKappa97]

3 hours ago, MrCheatachu said:

The wild defense has had a habit of making good goalies look great.  

And mediocre goalies look good.

Kaapo Kahkonen, Alex Stalock, Devan Dubnyk, Ilya Bryzgalov. They've all played better here than how they played when they moved on. Even Cam Talbot was considered washed when he arrived, but he played well here.

 

[mnfaninnc]

My price for Goose is 5 x $5m. To me, Blackwood's deal is a good comparison, not by the numbers, but by the eye test. 

Goose has nights where he looks really good, calm and hard to beat. He's got other nights where he can't find pucks and makes the normal save look difficult. He's adequate with hot streaks. 

I like his style, and I believe this is a good battery and we can run either 'tender out against anyone, but let's just get right down to it, The Wall needs to see NHL shots and once he adjusts to them, he will be the goalie 1a. 

But, The Wall's next contract likely isn't a big one. I think using him as a backup unless there's an injury is the way to develop him. Then resign him on a bridge. That's when he should be considered for top dawg honors. 

Some people may look at The Wall being a first round pick, but let's get real, here. Goose was a 2nd rounder and the best of class coming from Europe. Both are capable, I think that The Wall fills the net a little bit more and that's enough for a .1 sv% difference. Having both serving under $10m would be the goal and I think we can establish that for about 5 years, which would be a year before Goose's 5 year deal is up. 

I suspect he will be traded at the end of it, so having a very low M-NTC on that final year will probably need to be prioritized. 

[mnfaninnc]

6 hours ago, 0 Stanley Cups said:

Wally would need to have an unbelievable season for the Wild to let Gus depart via trade or UFA, which seems unlikely at this point.  If the Wild are entering the win now window of contending, we're going to need both Gus/Wally, but especially Gus, you don't roll the dice on your number true 1 goalie option, letting a 27 yr old go in favor of an unproven 22 yr old.  If Gus starts well enough, I hope the Wild extend him before Xmas.  After investing in $17M in KK97, Gus is looking like the Wild's best option as starter for the next couple years.

I agree with you here to a point. If the price is too expensive, I think we work on letting another goalie look really good behind our defense. 

I can't remember who said it, Raithis or Mateo, but they put it perfectly. When you look at Goose on the PK, that's where you see what kind of goalie he really is. And our PK for the past 3 seasons has been dreadful!

[Pewterschmidt]

5 hours ago, MrCheatachu said:

Cal Petersen looked decent to start the season, the only guy between the pipes that stood out in a bad way was Hlavaj.

Vaj stunk up the joint

Edited 13 minutes ago by Pewterschmidt

[Imyourhuckleberry]

6 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

I can't remember who said it, Raithis or Mateo, but they put it perfectly. When you look at Goose on the PK, that's where you see what kind of goalie he really is. And our PK for the past 3 seasons has been dreadful!

Part of that is on goalies, but that alone doesn't tell the full story. How many high danger pucks get on goal for the Wild compared to other PK units?

Also, for the 64 goalies with at least 16 games played last season, Gus was above average(23rd) at an .856 save% against power play shots, while Fleury ranked 61st with a .778 save%.

I agree that Gus not being top 15 there should be considered when talking about his next contract, but Gus wasn't the primary reason the Wild PK was below average.