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Wild's Jared Spurgeon expected to miss 2-3 weeks with injury, plus Kirill Kaprizov update

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WASHINGTON — Considering how dangerous the play was, how hard he crashed into the wall feet-first, how long he was on the ice and the fact he could put no weight on his right leg as he was assisted down the tunnel, Jared Spurgeon’s season isn’t over.

Far from it, in fact.

Wild president and general manager Bill Guerin told reporters Thursday night in the bowels of Capital One Arena that Spurgeon’s injury isn’t as bad as the team originally thought “but it’s still bad enough because he’s not in our lineup. … And obviously, that’s not great for our team.”

Guerin listed the Wild captain as week to week, but he later said the Wild hope to get Spurgeon back in two to three weeks.

L’Heureux received a three-game suspension from the NHL Wednesday and lost $13,489.59 of salary because this was his first offense in the NHL.

There’s a collective bargaining agreement the NHL has to follow, which is why it wrote in its video that L’Heureux had “no history” despite actually having a long rap sheet. At just 21 years old, the Nashville player has 11 previous suspensions in two leagues.

Asked about his reaction to the infraction, Guerin, an hour before the Wild played the Capitals, took a long pause and decided to bite his tongue: “Not happy.”

As for the league not being able to consider L’Heureux’s previous nine suspensions in the Quebec League and AHL, Guerin said, “That’s not for me to answer that. That’s a question for the league. The league has their process, and they handled it. 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.”

Guerin also provided updates on the Wild’s other injured players.

Most important is Kirill Kaprizov, who missed his fourth game in a row and won’t play in Raleigh on Saturday night either. He’s still not skating, but Guerin indicated that the Wild are just playing it safe with Kaprizov’s lower-body injury.

“It’s still just kind of day to day,” Guerin said. “We’re just still trying to work through what he has. The thing is that we don’t want him to come back and push through. 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.”

Guerin wouldn’t confirm that Kaprizov dealing with a groin injury. He previously labeled it “soreness.”

Guerin compared it though to forward Jakub Lauko recently returning from a pulled groin. Lauko missed six games, returned for three and has now missed nine in a row and counting after aggravating the injury on Dec. 14 against Philadelphia.

“It’s a lot like Kirill’s situation where (Lauko) came back and it got aggravated again,” Guerin said. “He’s gotta give it more time and we’d rather give it a little more time now than have it get worse and be out for longer.

The good news is defenseman Jake Middleton, who broke a finger on his right hand 11 games ago, is in a return-to-play protocol where he has started skating with pucks back in the Twin Cities.

Middleton is technically eligible to come off long-term injured reserve Tuesday when the Wild host St. Louis.

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

Obviously the big news to come out of Wednesday was Spurgeon, who last season was limited to 16 games and has had a terrific season to this point.

“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.”

The Wild entered Thursday’s game against Washington with a Jonas Brodin-Brock Faber top pair, then Declan Chisholm and Zach Bogosian on the second pair and Jon Merrill and Travis Dermott on the third pair.

Teammates were not happy Spurgeon is having to go through a significant injury again.

“It’s brutal, right?” Faber said. “Regardless of how serious or unserious it is, having to take time like that when he’s playing so well, feeling so well, it’s unfortunate just to say the least. But we all know him. You guys all know him. He’s gonna come back from it stronger than ever. That’s how he is. That’s what he does. There’s no doubt in our minds that he’s going to get through this thing.”

Carson Lambos was recalled from AHL Iowa. He didn’t make his NHL debut against the Capitals, but coach John Hynes indicated it could be coming. He wanted to go with Dermott first on the right side, the recently-acquired NHL veteran who was only playing for the third time since the Wild plucked him off waivers from the Oilers last month.

“He’s played well,” Guerin said. “His game’s improved over the last year and a half. He’s put his time in. He’s playing the right way. I think this is a good opportunity. We could have called up a number of guys, but he’s really taken a step and yeah it’s nice to see.”

Asked why the Wild didn’t give a shot to right-shot David Jiricek, Guerin said, “Hey, we could have called him up, too. We don’t know who’s going to get in the lineup. We don’t know and I feel it’s more important that David just continues to play a lot of hockey and play big minutes and he’s playing very well and we just want to continue that and we don’t want to interrupt the flow and have him sit in the stands for a game, maybe two. If we’re bringing him up, we want to bring him up and set him up for success.”

(Top photo of Jared Spurgeon and Kirill Kaprizov: Bob Frid / USA Today)



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