that Filip Gustavsson was getting the surprise nod.<\/a><\/p>\nJudging by Wallstedt\u2019s demeanor after Tuesday\u2019s morning skate, he looked a little ticked off. That was probably just the competitor in him. Wallstedt said the coaching staff explained its reasoning, which helped put it in perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously you want to play every game, but I also understood why,\u201d Wallstedt told The Athletic on Friday. \u201cI thought it was valid. I was ready. It was one game, too. I felt like I played a lot of good hockey, especially before. There were some goals I wanted back. It wasn\u2019t my best game, either. But it\u2019s only one loss either way \u2014 it doesn\u2019t matter if it was a 1-0 game or 3-2 game or 9-6 game. Just have to bounce back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what reasons Hynes gave him, such as giving him a mental reset, Wallstedt said he didn\u2019t want to get into the specifics. But it made sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a smart play,\u201d Wallstedt said. \u201cIt was good timing to get \u2018Gus\u2019 in to play as well, too. Obviously you give up eight goals, it\u2019s a good reason to try another (goalie). No bad feelings about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Hynes didn\u2019t officially announce his starting goalie for Game 3, it does feel as if it will be Wallstedt\u2019s net again. Wallstedt is the one who helped get the Wild to the second round for the first time in a decade. His confidence, calmness and clutch play impressed teammates and staff alike.<\/p>\n
Now Wallstedt has a chance to show he can bounce back after a big loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever happens for Game 3, Game 1 was a good learning experience,\u201d Wallstedt said. \u201cI\u2019ve played Colorado before, and that was just a different game. I didn\u2019t play my best hockey. You reset, you look at stuff. It\u2019s just like everything else \u2014 like the penalty kill, the power play. I look at stuff to get better at.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone tries to become better from the games we played. There\u2019s some stuff I can adjust to if I\u2019m playing them again. It just makes me a better goalie.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Avalanche did seem to find a spot at the left circle, a scoring area, as Nazem Kadri called it, where they were able to beat Wallstedt several times in Game 1. They weren\u2019t all shot on net at the same location, though, and Wallstedt dismissed any idea postgame that there was something to it.<\/p>\n
Wallstedt felt Game 1 was an anomaly all around, for both teams, with the rare 9-6 score. Minnesota was coming right off its emotional Game 6 win over Dallas three nights before, so the Wild have had much more time to reset and prepare in the last three days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our last game was a lot tighter,\u201d Wallstedt said. \u201cThat was a game that could have gone either way, easily. I think our five-on-five is really good. (Friday) we got to work on special teams a bit. I think it\u2019ll be an even better Game 3 now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The confidence hasn\u2019t left Wallstedt, who has the experience of beating the Avalanche during the regular season. The Wild are down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series, but Hynes said things can \u201cchange in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like they\u2019re impossible to beat,\u201d Wallstedt said. \u201cIt seems like everyone thinks they\u2019re some impossible team. They\u2019re really good, obviously, but so are we. We just had to see some details, see some stuff we can get better (at) as a group. And for myself as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Make no mistake, Jesper Wallstedt wanted the net again. The Wild rookie goaltender, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,7522,7524,575,85],"class_list":["post-659910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}