Spurgeon Avoids Suspension for Cheap Shot

The Minnesota Wild lost another playoff game on Monday night and nobody took it worse than Jared Spurgeon, who showed his frustration by cross-checking the Achilles tendons of St. Louis Blues’ forward Pavel Buchnevich. It was an out of the ordinary cheap shot for the quiet Minnesota captain, who very rarely spends time in the penalty box.

look at this TRASH pic.twitter.com/LB6qjXlMBi

— Tony X (@soIoucity) May 3, 2022

Lucky for the Wild, Spurgeon received only a $5,000 fine for his lapse in judgement. No suspension. Had this been a regular season game, he wouldn’t have been so lucky. Jared Spurgeon deserved whatever punishment issued by the NHL for his lapse in judgement and nobody would’ve flinched or been upset, had a suspension been announced.

But Jared has 12 years of NHL experience and has never shown this type of reactionary frustration. That paid dividends in this ruling. But there’s no doubt the rest of the Minnesota Wild locker room feels that same type of Achilles snapping fury, after game one.

#mnwild captain Jared Spurgeon avoids a suspension for his cross-check to Pavel Buchnevich’s Achilles last night and is instead fined the sum of $5,000.

Atypical sign of frustration for a player likely on many Lady Byng ballots but extremely fortunate nonetheless for him/Wild

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) May 3, 2022

Now, this team needs to figure out how to channel that into positive energy for game two. A loss would signal doom heading back to St. Louis down 0-2.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan