ST. PAUL, Minn. — Truth be told, it was Jared Spurgeon’s duty to score two goals to save the Minnesota Wild’s hide Friday afternoon because it was probably his fault they got off to such a sluggish start in the first place.
Once again, being the great captain he is and being the great captain’s wife Dani Spurgeon is, the Spurgeons opened their home to any Wild teammate who needed a place to spend Thanksgiving.
Fourteen of Spurgeon’s teammates took the couple up on Thursday’s offer. All in all, there were 31 adults and 22 kids in attendance, plus three turkeys, three hams and a whole pile of fixings.
And, “plenty of dessert,” Marc-Andre Fleury added.
So as often is the case with the Wild’s traditional Black Friday game, the Wild looked overstuffed and at the tail end of a tryptophan hangover during the first 20 minutes against the Blackhawks. They fell behind by two goals, but you just knew because of the confidence they’ve been playing with this season and given the lowly 32nd-place opponent they were facing that they’d just need one goal to pull off the inevitable.
Marco Rossi provided just that by finishing a pretty passing play between Kirill Kaprizov and Marcus Johansson.
“We needed something for the momentum change,” Rossi said. “It wasn’t our…
