Jared Spurgeon joins four others on injured reserve: What does this mean for the Wild?

Injuries keep piling up for the Minnesota Wild at a crucial time of the season.

Jared Spurgeon joined Kirill Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello, Vinni Lettieri and Filip Gustavsson on injured reserve Wednesday. Jonas Brodin, who suffered an upper-body injury on Dec. 8 in Edmonton, remains on long-term injured reserve, and Marcus Foligno is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

As a requirement of being placed on injured reserve, Spurgeon will be out a minimum of seven days. 

That means the Wild will be without one of their top defenseman and captain for at least the next three games against the Lightning tonight, Blue Jackets on Saturday and Stars on Monday.

"He's getting some treatments yesterday and today so I think a lot of it is how he responds to those," coach John Hynes told the media after morning skate Thursday. "I don't have a for sure timeline on it but it's, wait and see to see how he responds to the treatment because he was struggling to finish the game the other night. So, I'm trying to see if we can get it to settle down and to progress forward again."

Spurgeon has five points and a +5 rating across 16 games with a 23:20 average time-on-ice total in what has been an injury-riddled season for the veteran blueliner. But when Spurgeon has been in the lineup, he's been highly effective. 

The Wild have controlled 53.24 percent of the Corsi share and 54.73 percent of the expected goal share at five-on-five with Spurgeon on the ice — while outscoring the opposition 12-7, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Wild general manager Bill Guerin told The Athletic that Spurgeon reaggravated the injury that kept him out of the lineup for seven games in December. Spurgeon is once again sidelined after playing just three games since his return to the lineup last week.

The Wild recalled Daemon Hunt from the Iowa Wild on Wednesday, but he isn’t expected to play tonight against the Lightning. The Wild’s 21-year-old left-shot defensive prospect has played nine games so far this season.

After winning four in a row and earning victories in 11 of their first 14 games under Hynes, the shorthanded Wild have lost three straight since and continue to lose to key pieces to injury. The Wild (16-16-4) hope to avoid a fourth straight loss tonight against the Lightning (18-16-5).