Jesper Wallstedt got pranked with a misspelled jersey and Wild fans are trying to figure out the mystery

Just like that week between Christmas and New Year’s the final NHL games of the regular season were played on Tuesday but they weren’t uneventful. The Minnesota Wild had already locked up a playoff berth and know they’re going on the road to Dallas, but attention was not on the future but the presence of a prankster at Grand Casino Arena.

Goaltender Jesper Wallstedt came away with one more win to cement a fantastic rookie season, but folks were noticing something else in net while he was making his saves. Wallstedt’s name plate on his jersey looked off, and everyone soon realized it was because his last name had been misspelled.

Rather than “Wallstedt”, his name plate read “Wallstead”, and the race was on to figure out just what the heck was going on.

It was obvious this was a prank, but the quesiton was how deep it went. Some fans believed that Marc-Andre Fleury was the man behind it all, something that would have been the payoff to a tease we heard earlier in the season.

When Wallstedt was at the center of trade rumors, there were reports that the Wild might bring back Fleury to fill the gap on the roster such a move would make. That was quickly shutdown, but his role as the team prankster is something he might not have retired from.

Perhaps is was just an honest mistake, too. Wallstedt played a period in the wrong jersey before coming out in one with his correctly spelled last name to finish the game — won he won 3-2.

Who changed Jesper Wallstedt’s jersey to be the wrong one for Wild finale against Ducks?

Instead, the prankster might be a little closer to home. Wallstedt implied after the game that the whole thing was indeed a joke and pointed the finger at none other than Filip Gustavsson as the main culprit.

All jokes aside, these are exactly the vibes Minnesota needs heading into a playoff series against the Stars that will feel less like a first-round matchup and more like a Confernce Final showdown. It’s hard to believe the Wild will be meeting the second-best team in the Western Conference right out of the gate, and if last Thursday’s game was any indication of how things will go it’s going to be about as physical and taxing a series as one can imagine.

That’s why it’s nice to see the Wild so mentally loose heading into that. We’ve long known a series against the Stars was looming but rather than tighten up, Minnesota is very clearly not overthinking things.

A lot can change over the next few days as a playoff mentality is locked in, but already things feel a little different than they have in recent years heading into the postseason. Minnesota has it’s work cut out against Dallas, but you’d be hard pressed to know that seeing how loose the team is heading into what should be one of the most exciting postseasons the team has been involved with in some time.

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