Trade talks involving a Wild defender have forced the team and many around the State of Hockey to size up the current defensemen to include Jared Spurgeon. However, a look at his numbers and abilities makes it clear that Spurgeon’s value to the Wild is much more than his peers.
There’s no doubt that the Minnesota Wild defense is the most talented and successful group on the Wild’s roster. The defensive corps of the Wild is so flush with talent that the team has been fairly open about trading a player away and still having enough in reserve to have an excellent and cohesive unit. Measuring the talent and value of the individual pieces can be hard sometimes, but alas it’s something that all NHL franchises must do when looking to see what players are expendable and which ones must be kept.
When looking at the Wild defensemen you could be easily swayed to say that 5’9’’ Jared Spurgeon is the piece that the Wild can live without. Think again. Spurgeon’s play over the last six seasons has been as consistent as they come, and next to his top defensive mate Ryan Suter he has the best offensive and defensive numbers of any Wild defender.
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In Spurgeon’s six seasons at the NHL level, he’s only finished as a minus one season, and is +24 on his career. His offensive zone start percentage on his career is 51.4% to include last season when that number was 54%. That means that when Spurgeon is on the ice the Wild are more often than not pushing the play into the offensive zone, which starts with strong first passing from Spurgeon. Furthermore a strong offensive zone start number like that shows that Wild are not back on their heels when Spurgeon is one the ice, they are pressing the play.
Furthermore it can be said that not only is Spurgeon defending effectively, he’s doing it with a lot of skill. USA Today pointed out that since 2010 Spurgeon’s 38 penalty minutes are the fewest among NHL defensemen over that stretch. He’s blocked 583 shots over that time as well to the tune of 1.5 shots blocked a game. So bottom line, he’s defending effectively and skillfully enough to keep himself out of the sin bin. That says that his technique, positioning, and mechanics are top-notch and therefore make it to where he can overcome his lack of size and play defense better than defenders that are bigger than him.
His offensive numbers are also solid, but still offer some space in which to grow. He was 10th in scoring for the Wild last season with 29 points and second on the team in defenders behind Suter. With Boudreau coming in and a more focus on offenses he’ll get a few more points. More importantly they need to make it a point to play him on the power play more where scored 8 goals and was on the ice for 19 power play tallies. Spurgeon’s vision and puck movement make him perfect for the power play, but since he played on the second unit for all most all of the season he was never given enough chances to truly excel with the man advantage.
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Still when talking about who can be traded or who should be unprotected for the upcoming expansion draft, Spurgeon’s name should be mentioned as someone who is largely off the table and will stay with the team. Sure his value is high on the open market, but if you were paying attention you saw that he’s a solid defensive talent who is clearly the second best defender on the team.
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When talking about the value of Brodin, Scandella, and Dumba it’s a lot harder to figure out which one is the best of that group. Spurgeon on the other hand has established an all-around game that makes him clearly better all of them and second only to Ryan Suter on the Wild. To put it simply, teams have passed on deals for Dumba and Brodin because they aren’t sure either one can be a top pairing defender. Spurgeon is already a top pairing defender and has the numbers and game to justify it. Teams wouldn’t pass on Spurgeon, but too bad for them the Wild aren’t offering him up.