It seems Jesper Wallstedt is human after all.
Minnesota’s rookie goaltender took his first regulation loss of the season Saturday, a 4-2 loss at Vancouver.
It was the second consecutive defeat for the Wild following a 12-game point streak.
Minnesota will look to bounce back when it wraps up a four-game trip Monday in Seattle against the struggling Kraken.
“They scored good hockey goals, and they switched the momentum, and we just couldn’t get the puck in,” said Wallstedt (8-1-2), whose winning streak was snapped at seven. “I just got to fight through the screen a little better. I thought I got stuck behind the screen a couple times today where I just couldn’t catch the release, and that makes it hard. I felt like I just didn’t give us a good enough chance to win.”
Wallstedt also has a costly mistake behind his own net, pickpocketed by Aatu Raty for the Canucks’ final goal.
“I thought a different player was coming in and then I just missed the puck twice, and he ended up stripping it from me,” said Wallstedt, whose 10-game point streak was tied for the fourth longest by a rookie in NHL history to start a season. “I should make a play faster and just get the puck out of my hands, but it happened, it’s a lesson to be learned and move on from.”
Matt Boldy had a goal and an assist for the Wild, giving him 31 points on the season (16 goals, 15 assists), one shy of team leader Kirill Kaprizov (17 goals, 15 assists).
“We didn’t get rewarded for the effort we put in offensively and then we had a couple self-inflicted wounds,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “But I thought, from an effort standpoint and the intensity standpoint, I think when you look at the overall game in any measure, we probably deserved a little bit better than what we got.”
The Kraken have lost five in a row (0-4-1), including four straight in regulation after a 4-3 defeat Saturday to visiting Detroit in which Patrick Kane scored the deciding goal with 2:29 remaining.
The Kraken have been outscored 20-9 over the past four games, but their scoring woes extend beyond that stretch.
Jordan Eberle is tied for the team lead with eight goals with Jaden Schwartz, who is out for the next five or so weeks with a lower-body injury. No Kraken player has more than 16 points.
“We have a tough time scoring goals,” Seattle defenseman Brandon Montour said. “It’s not that we can’t score goals, it’s just not going in or we’re not getting enough to the net or making it hard on their goalie, making it hard on the D. So the best way to kind of get out of that is to shoot more pucks at the net, and we’re trying to get them there.”
Montour scored Saturday and fellow defenseman Adam Larsson had a goal and an assist.
“I thought we did a lot of good things offensively,” Larsson said. “Every team goes through tough stretches. It’s a long season, and I mean, you lose one, and then you can go on a heater too. We’ve just got to stay positive. I thought (Saturday) was a lot better than the last three.”
This will be the first of three meetings between the teams this season.
–Field Level Media
