Wild captain Jared Spurgeon’s scary injury will keep him sidelined for two to three weeks

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Wild captain Jared Spurgeon avoided a season-ending injury when he was slew-footed by Nashville’s Zachary L’Heureux, but Spurgeon won’t be back anytime soon.

He’ll be sidelined two to three weeks, President of Hockey Operations Bill Guerin announced, because of a lower-body injury that won’t require surgery.

“It’s not as bad as we originally thought,” Guerin said. “It’s still bad enough because he’s not in our lineup.”

Spurgeon was hurt early in the second period of the Wild’s 5-3 win over the Predators at Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday night after crashing feet first into the boards.

His right leg bent awkwardly during the high-speed collision, and Spurgeon was helped off the ice with his right skate lifted. L’Heureux was assessed a match penalty and Thursday, the NHL suspended the rookie for three games.

Although L’Heureux has been disciplined previously in his career, including in the American Hockey League, he had never been fined or suspended by the NHL and therefore was a first-time offender.

“The league has their process, and they handled it,” said Guerin, who mentioned he was “not happy” with the play. “We live with that. In the end, it doesn’t get our player back. That’s what makes me lose sleep at night is they get their player back in three games. Ours is out two to three weeks.”

This is the second consecutive season Spurgeon, 35, has been out significant time. He was shut down last January because of nagging hip and back issues that required surgery.

After returning for the start of the season, Spurgeon went on to miss nearly two weeks in October to continue to heal. In 32 games, he had four goals and nine assists.

“Obviously, he’s upset,” Guerin said. “He’s gone through a lot in the last calendar year with injuries and surgeries and things like that, so this is not the way he wanted to start the new year.”

In Spurgeon’s absence, the Wild tabbed veteran Travis Dermott to join the right side of their blue line and fill out their lineup, which is also without Kirill Kaprizov (lower-body injury), Jake Middleton (upper body) and Jakub Lauko (lower body).

Kaprizov has sat out the past four games and isn’t on the Wild’s road trip, but this isn’t a setback for the team’s leading scorer, Guerin said.

“We don’t want him to come back and push through,” Guerin explained. “He could, but it could make something worse. We need him for the long haul. We don’t just need him for a couple games in January. We need him to get healthy and feel better, so we’re trying to do the right thing and just look at it from the long point of view.”

Lauko is in a similar situation, needing time to let his injury clear up before it becomes worse, while Middleton is back on the ice.

The defenseman is eligible to return from long-term injury reserve as soon as next week, and Guerin said Middleton “could be” ready by then. Middleton, who turned 29 Thursday, has been out since getting hit on the hand with a shot from Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard on Dec. 12.

“Yeah, Middsy’s coming along. He’ll hopefully be back soon. He’s probably opening beer cans with that finger tonight — it’s his birthday,” Guerin joked. “He’s got nine others, but I don’t know if he’ll figure out how to use those.”

To have an extra defenseman for their trip, the Wild beckoned prospect Carson Lambos from the minors for his first NHL call-up, a nod to how well the first-round draft pick (26th overall in 2021) has been playing with Iowa in the AHL, but Lambos didn’t draw in against Washington on Thursday at Capital One Arena.

Lambos is a lefty, but the Wild chose to promote him over the righthanded David Jiricek because the team wants Jiricek to keep playing rather than interrupt that rhythm to potentially sit as a healthy scratch.

“If we’re bringing him up, we want to bring him up and set him up for success,” Guerin said of Jiricek, who the Wild acquired in a trade with Columbus in November for four draft picks and defenseman Daemon Hunt.

As for making another trade for a defenseman, Guerin said he doesn’t feel the need to do that, considering Middleton is on the mend and Spurgeon won’t be out for long.

“We’ve got healthy defensemen, and they’re gonna get a great opportunity to play higher up in the lineup and hey, you know what? That’s the way it goes,” Guerin said. “All hands on deck, and we’ll be fine.”