Wild confirm news on team captain Jared Spurgeon

The Minnesota Wild have activated team captain Jared Spurgeon from long-term injured reserve and sent Daemon Hunt to the minor leagues. Spurgeon has been on injured reserve for the entirety of the early season, battling an upper-body injury.

Getting Spurgeon back is a tremendous boost to a Wild lineup that’s struggled to get on the right side of the win column. The team has a 5-6-2 record through 13 games, ranking them sixth in the Central Division. But now they get back a pillar of their lineup in Spurgeon, who has averaged more than 21 minutes of ice time for the club in every season since 2011-12. He scored 11 goals and 34 points last season, taking a slight step down from the 40 points he managed in the 2021-22 campaign.

Daemon Hunt appeared in his first five NHL games while helping to fill in for Spurgeon. He wasn’t able to net his first NHL box stat though, going without a point, penalty, or change in his +/-. He’ll return to the AHL’s Iowa Wild, where he’s already played four games this season — failing to record a point in those games as well, although he did record seven penalty minutes and a -3.

Spurgeon is expected to miss the team’s Friday matchup, but is likely to return when the Wild face Dallas on Sunday. The 33-year-old defenseman is chasing his 400th NHL point, currently sitting 21 points back from the milestone. He will have missed 14 games if he returns on Sunday, giving him the potential to play in, at most, 68 games this season.