WINNIPEG – First, to be fair, we don’t know what’s going on yet with Jared Spurgeon.
Maybe he just tweaked his groin. Maybe he just blocked a shot with his skate or something.
The Minnesota Wild aren’t saying why he didn’t accompany the team to Winnipeg for its third game of the season Sunday night. You don’t want to overreact to one game out of the lineup. It’s hockey. Injuries happen.
But because the Wild don’t feel they can give any specifics yet besides the fact Spurgeon is day-to-day with a lower body injury after playing 19 ½ minutes Saturday night against Seattle, you have to worry if Spurgeon’s dealing with a setback in his return from season-ending hip and back surgeries last year.
Like most teams, the Wild are often vague or secretive when it comes to injuries. They sure were with Spurgeon last season until they finally announced in January he’d need two operations a month apart.
But if they were at all certain this wasn’t related to last year’s issues and this was merely something like a groin or bum foot, you’d think at least in this case they’d just come out and tell us that.
Choosing his words carefully after Sunday’s 2-1 overtime loss in Winnipeg, Wild coach John Hynes said, “At this point I really don’t have accurate information to give you because he’s getting looked at (Monday). So when I get the reports back, then I think I can give you more of a fair answer and more of an honest answer. Right now we’re looking at him as day-to-day and then we’ll see what comes out of his results.”
Let’s sure hope.
Not just because of what Spurgeon’s absence could do to the team and what dealing with these issues again could do to the hockey player. At 34 years old, Spurgeon is one of the franchise’s greatest defensemen ever and surely their biggest find, a junior free agent who wasn’t even signed by the team that drafted him (the Islanders).
Fourteen years later, no blueliner has played more games for the Wild than Spurgeon. None have scored more goals or registered more points. He’s been a constant on the ice since 2010.
But most of all, Spurgeon has been one of the great ambassadors in Wild history and one of their most beloved teammates. If you’re a nervous rookie, it’s Spurgeon who makes you feel at home, usually by inviting you over to his home. If you’re an Iowa-bound minor-leaguer, it doesn’t matter to Spurgeon. He’s the guy who tried to make you feel like part of the team. If you’re a future superstar like Kirill Kaprizov who speaks next to no English and had only stepped foot in North America once before, it’s Spurgeon who first reaches out to make you feel welcome.
Spurgeon, who missed 66 games last season, was so hurt he often had to untie his skates on the bench in hopes of getting some sensation back in his numb foot. He was in pain constantly, whether it was playing hockey or bending down to tie one of his kid’s skates.
You sure hope he’s not dealing with that again, especially after working exhaustively to return to the lineup this season.
Spurgeon spent his entire offseason in Minnesota committed to his rehab so he could put this all behind him.
As Brock Faber said early last month, Spurgeon was “flying” throughout the team’s informal August and September skates. He looked poised to have a healthy season all the while knowing that what he was recovering from would require constant maintenance and treatments.
But now? You can tell teammates are worried.
“I don’t think we know much, but obviously having him healthy is huge for us,” Faber said. “We’re as anxious about the news as you guys are.”
As defenseman Jake Middleton said, his main concern is Spurgeon’s health. Grouping in Joel Eriksson Ek, who also missed Sunday’s game after getting elbowed in the face the night before, “We just want those guys to get healthy.”
The good news is Eriksson Ek, besides a busted nose, is expected to join the team in St. Louis for Tuesday’s game against the Blues.
The Wild have played three games. They haven’t trailed in a single game, yet they’re 1-0-2 after consecutive shootout and overtime losses.
Sunday in Winnipeg, the aftereffects of such a hard, physical, back and forth game against the Seattle Kraken filtered right onto the ice. The Wild battled hard. They worked their butts off. But their execution wasn’t good, especially from Matt Boldy, Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello. They were off the mark often with passes, shots, outlets, usually-routine stuff. Little was clean for almost 60-plus minutes. That’s what happens when you have to play your top players between 19:50 and 24:16 minutes less than 22 hours before.
You could tell how bad their execution was when they literally couldn’t get in the offensive zone on a big third-period power play in a 1-1 game. You could tell how bad their execution was when Faber did everything to eat the final minute off the clock but passed to Boldy only to see him send a five-foot pass across the ice from his own zone for a quick turnover back into their zone. That led to one big scoring chance Filip Gustavsson turned away and eventually a Zach Bogosian penalty that led to Kyle Connor’s four-on-three winner in overtime.
The point of pointing all of this out?
This is how last season started.
Spurgeon hurt his shoulder in his final exhibition game. The Wild lost Boldy and Freddy Gaudreau to injuries in their second game of the season. Two days later, Alex Goligoski broke his foot in practice.
The Wild feel they improved their depth in the offseason to be better equipped to handle injuries this season. But like last year proved, when you have to spend nearly $15 million less than 31 other teams due to a couple buyouts, you’re forced to overextend guys to the point that even the fittest athletes look like they can’t function in a back-to-back game like Sunday.
And that’s how more injuries pile onto each other.
It caught up to them last year and injuries were a major reason they missed the playoffs for only the second time since 2012.
Now it feels this season is starting similarly ominously.
You just hope this isn’t the start of life without Spurgeon for awhile and another year of having to play Faber 28-30 minutes a night. Even at 34, Spurgeon’s too important to the Wild’s success.
And even if the Wild get good news about whatever Spurgeon is dealing with, you almost expect the team will have to be extremely conservative with his return to the lineup to ensure this doesn’t become a season-long issue.
This, of course, is if he’s dealing with a setback. But judging from the vagueness of Sunday’s announcement, it sure feels like he is.
“Now we know what to expect when we miss our captain,” Gustavsson said. “We had almost a full season last year with no captain. Can’t just lay down and die from it. So we have to keep battling for him, too.”
(Top photo: David Berding / Getty Images)
