What does Jared Spurgeon's contract extension mean for your cap league?

This past week, the Minnesota Wild re-signed defenseman Jared Spurgeon to a new four-year, $20.75M contract, costing them $5.187M toward the cap. The new deal takes effect at the start of next season and he will become the second highest paid defenseman on the team.

Originally drafted by the New York Islanders in round six of the 2008 NHL draft, the Islanders never signed him to an entry-level contract so Spurgeon was signed by the Wild as a free agent back in 2010. At the time, 5-foot 9-inch defensemen just weren’t the norm and one must think the Islanders didn’t see him in their future. Little did they know what Spurgeon would become.

Spurgeon stepped right in with the Wild and played 53 games as a rookie in 2010/11. In his rookie season, he scored four goals and added eight assists for 12 points. Every year since then, he’s shown steady improvement. So far, his career high in points is 26 (5G, 21A) in 67 games during the 2013/14 season. Last season, he scored a career-high nine goals in 66 games.

In his time with the Minnesota Wild, he currently ranks third among defensemen in franchise history in terms of goals (31), game-winning goals (eight), power-play goals (15) and blocked shots (491). He ranks fourth in terms of games played (328). He ranks fifth in terms of shots (459) and is tied for fifth in power-play points (43). Spurgeon also ranks sixth among defensemen in the franchise in terms of overall scoring (118 total points). Not too bad for a free agent pickup and former sixth round draft pick.

Using Frozen Pool, let’s take a look at Spurgeon’s current and previous seasons.

If we take some of the closest cap hits to Spurgeon’s new deal, let’s see how he matches up against some of the defensemen in that price range.

All things considered, Spurgeon is certainly holding his own as far as offence goes in this group. He also is one of the better blockers in this group as well, speaking highly of him being able to take care of business in his own end as well.

If we take these same seven players, plug their names into the Fantasy Hockey Geek tool and see where they sit fantasy wise (where the numbers truly count) using the UHL Salary Cap Dynasty League model (G,A,+/-,PIMs,GWG,PPP,SHP,Hits,Blocks,FOW) the players end up ranking like this for the current NHL season:

What does this new contract mean for the Minnesota Wild?

First off it locks up someone they obviously consider a key piece moving forward and buys three years of his UFA status. Heading into next year, the Wild will still have some tough choices as this will put them close to the cap limit and still have key RFA’s to sign (Jason Zucker, Matt Dumba and Darcy Kuemper). That being said, Niklas Backstrom’s waste of cap space comes off the books too. 

If there’s one thing the Wild have, it’s depth at the defensive position. Locking up Spurgeon for four years means they have options to move some of their other young defensemen for help at the forward position. Spurgeon is only 25-years-old so he is going to be a key piece for years to come for Minnesota.

What does this mean for your fantasy roster?

Initially, I thought this was a bit of a reach for the Wild as far as the dollar amount goes.  Maybe we are just used to seeing so many quality defensemen signing for the standard $4M deal and wondering why others get less and question when some get more. Looking at the numbers compared to others in this dollar range, I don’t think Spurgeon is that bad of a deal after all. He obviously still has more to prove when comparing him to the other names in that price range but as far as the numbers go, he certainly holds his own.

All in all, he’s been a bit of a bargain up to this point for the Wild so good for them for rewarding him. 

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