Jared Spurgeon Got Mad Against the Kings. Then He Got Even.

Brian Burke, the former NHL executive turned hockey luminary, has a theory about officiating in hockey. The first call of a game is the most important one because it sets the standard for the rest of the night. It lets players and coaches know where the line is and gives them an idea of what kind of game the officials will be calling that night.

So when referee Carter Sandlak’s first call during Monday night’s tilt between the Minnesota Wild and the Los Angeles Kings was a slashing infraction against Marco Rossi after he disrupted Kevin Fiala’s attack with a one-handed tap to the former Wild sniper’s stick, the Wild, while agitated at the soft call, knew where the line was. 

At the very least, they could expect an “even-up” call.

However, less than two minutes after the call against Rossi, Sandlak didn’t call a blatant two-handed slash by Trevor Moore onto Jared Spurgeon’s hands.

Given the standard the referees had set with their initial call, the Wild captain was understandably upset by the discrepancy. Early in his next shift, the normally stoic Spurgeon couldn’t keep the frustration and annoyance from his face as he prepared for a neutral zone faceoff. 

When the puck dropped, the defenseman jumped immediately into the play as if shot out of a cannon and led a Wild attack that included two grade-A scoring chances for Ryan Hartman.

That shift set the tone for the rest of the night for Spurgeon. He was simply phenomenal, with assists on Hartman’s game-tying power-play goal in the second period and Marcus Johansson’s game-clinching empty netter in the third, on which Spurgeon disrupted a pass and chipped it to Johansson.

His impact also went beyond the scoresheet. Spurgeon was a force all over the ice. There was a puck battle with Adrian Kempe later in the first period when he initiated contact, made a hard stick play to establish positioning, and forced a change of possession. There was a sequence early in the second when he made multiple incursions into the offensive zone on Rossi’s dynamic shift that led to a Kings penalty.

Then, there were multiple instances of domination against LA’s dynamic, powerful young center, Quinton Byfield, who probably saw Spurgeon in his nightmares. 

With the Wild on the penalty kill nearly halfway into the second period, Spurgeon shadowed Byfield down low and threw him against the boards with a surprisingly impactful body check. Later in the second, Spurgeon hit Byfield again during a race to the puck, then immediately stripped Fiala with a poke check that gave the Wild possession.

On his first shift of the third period, Spurgeon aggressively pinched down the wall in the offensive zone. He took a perfect line when tracking back on a backcheck and out-leveraged Warren Foegele for a loose puck near the net, which allowed for an easy breakout. Spurgeon had Byfield’s number again on the penalty kill early in the third period when he poke-checked the puck off his stick as Byfield carried it into the zone, then immediately deflected his passing attempt, leading to a loose puck that ended with a tripping penalty on the Kings.

It was a vintage performance by Spurgeon, with a little extra sandpaper mixed in. And he did a lot of it while looking, frankly, pissed off. Who can blame him? The Wild’s soft-spoken captain is a perennial Lady Byng candidate who lets his play do the talking. When he engages with officials, it’s usually in the form of a respectful conversation between whistles or during stoppages, and there’s never any of the yelling and foaming at the mouth that often occur when players and coaches are displeased with a call.

Spurgeon had every right to feel disrespected and angered by the immediate contradiction Sandlak made to the standard he initially set two minutes prior. Missed calls happen every night because referees are human, and being an official is difficult. Still, when a blatant discrepancy occurs against a respected veteran, there are bound to be some angry players on the ice.

In past seasons, the Wild occasionally let their ire with the officials derail them in games. With star players missing this year as the season heads into the final stretch, they can’t afford to lose their cool when calls don’t go their way.

Instead, they can do exactly what Spurgeon did on Monday night. They can get angry and channel that anger into their play. What the Wild captain displayed against the Kings exemplified why he was named as just the second full-time captain in the organization’s history. The Wild will need more of that if they want to make a run in the playoffs.

So, while the Wild never did receive the “even up” they deserved, it didn’t matter. Jared Spurgeon took matters into his own hands, evened it out himself, and led the team to a much-needed victory.