Jesper Wallstedt and Liam Ohgren will make Wild’s season-opening roster

If Jesper Wallstedt making the opening-night roster wasn’t enough of an endorsement that he’s the Wild’s goaltender of the future, his new contract certainly is.

The Wild signed Wallstedt to a two-year, $4.4 million extension that kicks in next season, which is when he’ll figure to have a much more prominent role in the NHL.

For now, he’s behind Marc-Andre Fleury and Filip Gustavsson on the depth chart, sticking around as a third goalie who could occasionally play in the minors. But the plan is for the 21-year-old to appear in the Wild’s net much more than the three games he logged last season.

“I’ve just been loving every day, to show up here and compete, and [being] around these guys has been awesome and obviously something that I want to do,” Wallstedt said Monday at Tria Rink in St. Paul before his deal was announced. “I want to be here every day.”

Liam Ohgren is the other rookie filling out the Wild’s initial roster, which had to be trimmed to the 23-player limit by Monday afternoon.

But Wallstedt and Ohgren making the team out of training camp doesn’t mean they’ll be in action on Thursday night when the Wild open the season vs. Columbus at Xcel Energy Center.

Currently, Ohgren is skating as the extra forward, but the Wild have options. In fact, they still haven’t finalized their defense: Jon Merrill took reps in practice on Monday with Zach Bogosian in place of Declan Chisholm.

“You have to let some games play out here, see how players play and go from there,” said coach John Hynes, who also mentioned the schedule as another factor in how the team will decide its lineup. “There is a huge, understandably, build-up to the opening-day roster, but that opening-day roster could change [on] Day 2.”

With Wallstedt and Ohgren, the Wild have flexibility.

Neither player requires waivers to get to Iowa in the American Hockey League. Should Ohgren, 20, idle too long as a reserve, he could go to Iowa to play, but he also believes being around the team will be a learning experience for him. The winger wasn’t at his best at the start of camp but rebounded, with Hynes calling Ohgren’s speed and competitiveness on the puck noticeable.

“I feel like I was thinking a lot, especially first week and first [preseason] game on everything, on the system and about making the team or not, just too many thoughts,” said Ohgren, who was drafted by the Wild in the first round (19th) in 2022 and played four games last season. “Then I had to talk with Hynsie, and I feel like that was a great talk. He just said I need to go out and play my game and be myself.

“After that, I feel like I played better and better every practice and every game as well.”

Another first-round pick (20th overall in 2021), Wallstedt has justified the Wild’s openness to carrying three goalies.

He stopped 63 of 68 shots in two preseason games and has returned looking like the goalie he was at the end of the season, when he turned the page on a difficult NHL debut at Dallas (a 7-2 loss) by winning his next two starts with the Wild. Wallstedt is 40-34-9 with a .909 save percentage, 2.69 goals-against average and three shutouts during two seasons with Iowa.

“I want to play games,” said Wallstedt, who is finishing up his entry-level contract this season, but he also understands the bigger picture: If the Wild get hurt at forward or on defense, they might need to demote Wallstedt to free up enough salary cap space to make a call-up. He could also report to the AHL to play if the Wild have a break in their schedule.

Still, these circumstances won’t stop Wallstedt from trying to stay with the Wild.

“I want to be here and hopefully make a case that I’m not the guy they’re sending down,” said Wallstedt, who will be living in Minneapolis. “Hopefully I could put in the effort and put up the results that they feel that they want to keep me instead of someone else.”