PITTSBURGH \u2014 It was Oct. 30, the score was 1-1 after two periods, and the message in the home locker room heading into the third period against the Pittsburgh Penguins was simple enough: \u201cJust win a period.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Minnesota Wild then came out and gave up three goals during a flat period to end a flat month \u2014 the worst October in franchise history \u2014 with a ninth loss in 12 games.<\/p>\n
It was the perfect time for a closed-door, players-only, tear-the-effin\u2019-paint-off-the-wall team meeting. While a few choice words were indeed flung around, the locker-room doors opened to the media atypically fast because captain Jared Spurgeon had something more unique in mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpurgey told me that he wanted to just have something the next day, and that\u2019s how it went,\u201d alternate captain Marcus Foligno said. \u201cSpurgey threw on the text message group, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re going to have a meeting before practice and just the players, and we\u2019re going to hash things out.\u2019 So, yeah, that was all him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Often it\u2019s cliched to credit a players-only meeting once there\u2019s a season turnaround, but there\u2019s no denying the Wild have looked like a different team starting with their 5-2 pounding of the Vancouver Canucks a day after Spurgeon gathered his teammates before a hard-working Oct. 31 practice.<\/p>\n
Since Nov. 1, the Wild are a league-best 7-1-1 (15 of a possible 18 points).<\/p>\n
Defensively, after an October when they were dreadful, they\u2019re second-best in November, allowing 1.89 goals per game and posting the eighth-best penalty kill (87 percent). They have the fifth-most hits in that span (195), fifth-most blocked shots (149) and second-best save percentage (.937). Offensively, they\u2019re tied for 12th with 3.0 goals per game and have scored first in a franchise-record 10 consecutive games after an October when it felt they trailed every second of every game.<\/p>\n
THE WALL OF ST. PAUL!! \ud83d\udfe2 pic.twitter.com\/dWzKYbgSFz<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 NHL (@NHL) November 20, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n In other words, they got back to their hard-working, hard-checking, north-south identity.<\/p>\n Players\u2019 meetings are confidential. Players are loath to let loose what\u2019s said inside those closed walls.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why Matt Boldy, after scoring his first career shorthanded goal and seventh career shootout-deciding goal in\u00a0Wednesday\u2019s win over Carolina, wasn\u2019t going to bite when asked to divulge just a little bit: \u201cYeah, it was good. It was a good meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n Luckily for us, Foligno, Spurgeon and defenseman Brock Faber did give The Athletic a little taste.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the message was just everyone\u2019s intentions are right in this room, and it\u2019s just getting back to things you can control,\u201d Faber said. \u201cLike, I can\u2019t control whether I have five shots on goal, five opportunities to jump in the rush, five chances a game. I can\u2019t control that. Things I can control are the way I box out, the way I compete, the way I gap, and then the rest is already written. So getting back to our identity and trusting the guy next to you was obviously the thing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe deeper message was more so just, \u2018Everyone has the right intentions in here and let\u2019s just f\u2014ing lean into what makes each individual good and it\u2019ll come together. It was a good reset for us. It was very positive. Very positive in that room. We knew the team we had, and we pushed through it.\u201d<\/p>\n \ud83e\udece in THE HAT pic.twitter.com\/zLw0LtdBvh<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) November 17, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Spurgeon, a Wild lifer since his 21st birthday 15 years ago, may seem like a quiet captain on the outside, and he largely is. However, he\u2019s beloved by his teammates and is as inclusive as anybody who\u2019s ever put on a Wild sweater. He makes everybody feel a part of it, so when he speaks, it means something.<\/p>\n And on that Oct. 31 morning, Spurgeon wasn\u2019t the only player to speak up, nor his alternate captains, Foligno and Kirill Kaprizov.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of guys spoke up, and it was a great message, and obviously, it changed a lot of things for us,\u201d Faber said. \u201cIt just sucks when you\u2019re losing like that. You come to the rink gloomy, and you come to the rink \u2014 it feels like everything in your life sucks. And that positivity kind of lifted us all.\u201d<\/p>\n Foligno said Spurgeon was worried about the frustration he was witnessing. Teammates were slamming doors, breaking sticks and cursing each other out.<\/p>\n \u201cSpurgey started the meeting and told everybody, \u2018You\u2019ve got to calm down a little bit,\u2019\u201d Foligno said. \u201cGuys were just a little bit trying to do things themselves, myself included. I think we all wanted to have a great start again, like last season, and the way, I think, individuals played, everybody was on their own page, and I just thought that we weren\u2019t really connected as a group.<\/p>\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t doing the little things the right way, and just sometimes you just need a reset. (Coach John Hynes) is going to say what he has to say, but from a guy like Spurgey, it might just have a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n Players needed to be reminded that it\u2019s a fun game, Foligno added. \u201cSo it was almost like, \u2018Just relax and get some new oxygen in your system.\u2019 And we came out roaring after that.\u201d<\/p>\n Spurgeon has been part of many players-only meetings over the years and has led many. But sometimes, when you start screaming immediately after the game, \u201cyou can let things fly off your chest and you\u2019re just throwing words around and guys go home insulted and offended,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n So Spurgeon decided to go home, digest the Penguins\u2019 game, think about the first month of the season, get some ideas together and hold a meeting that would have some substance to it.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to have a meaningful meeting so we could air out what everybody was thinking,\u201d Spurgeon said. \u201cSo it was all positive from the group inside and the belief we had, and we just had to lock in a bit. I think we were a bit loose and it was early. That\u2019s what sucks about going through something like that right away is that everything is magnified because everybody\u2019s focused on having a good start of the season.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, you have no wins to rely on, so the teams that go through that in the middle of the year, no one really notices. But we have high expectations out of ourselves, we needed to remember who we were and we\u2019ve been playing a lot better ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n Spurgeon said he didn\u2019t realize the Wild were 7-1-1 since that meeting and isn\u2019t overly gratified that, so far, it worked.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing about our group is our guys really care so much, we want to win so bad, and sometimes when you want to win so bad and you\u2019re not, you start doing almost too much and you try to take on everything yourself and do more than you need to rather than just trusting the guy next to you,\u201d Spurgeon said. \u201cNow? I think you can see that even with all the injuries we have, every single line is playing well, every single D-man is playing well and the goalies are playing great. That\u2019s the way we want it to go. In other words, the message of the meeting was, \u2018Let\u2019s do it together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n And the thing about Spurgeon is he always backs up his words with his play. Spurgeon hasn\u2019t been on the ice for a five-on-five goal against in nearly 160 minutes, with the Wild having a 7-0 goal advantage with him on the ice in that stretch. Kaprizov is playing his best hockey of the year, as is Foligno, who has been much better defensively and is making an impact with bone-crushing checks.<\/p>\n \u201cOur leaders on this team are our leaders for a reason,\u201d Faber said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been through stretches like that. What I loved about the meeting is it wasn\u2019t something that they just planned out of nowhere and everyone just ripped into each other. It was thought about. It was thoughtful, it was meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n BROCK FABER pic.twitter.com\/kVfOVhKiun<\/a><\/p>\n