ST. PAUL, Minn. -- After a poor second period and even worse third period, Jared Spurgeon could have closed the doors to the dressing room after Thursday's loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. He could have aired every ounce of frustration he had for the Minnesota Wild's terrible start to the season right then and there during a team meeting.
But instead, the Wild captain left the arena and sent a series of late-night texts to Minnesota head coach John Hynes. Spurgeon let Hynes know the leadership group planned to hold a players' only meeting before Friday's practice. Coach and captain had an open conversation, and Spurgeon discussed a few thoughts and ideas he had during what he hoped would be an open forum where teammates could talk openly and honestly about a frustrating start to the season for an organization with big expectations despite three wins in its first 12 games.
The Wild didn't throw their sticks in the air and jump for joy after Saturday's 5-2 win over a banged-up Vancouver Canucks team, but they probably wanted to after snapping a five-game winless streak and finally getting their first win in the fifth game of this disappointing six-game homestand.
But it's also probably not a coincidence that after that meeting, the Wild played with more of a hardworking identity against the Canucks. They never trailed. They were strong on the forecheck. They didn't disintegrate when the Canucks pushed in the third, and they earned a much-needed win.
Hynes has done a lot of talking in the first month of the season. It was time for the players to padlock the dressing room doors and get some stuff out in the open.
"It was more about everyone get back on the same page," goalie Filip Gustavsson told The Athletic after Saturday's win. "You know, it was closed, and it's only the players, and you can tell what you felt in there, and you can open up and just say what you think about what's going on, just getting something off your shoulder. It was (no) panic or anything like that. It was more like, 'What do we actually feel here?' And it worked so far."
Hynes gives Spurgeon credit for recognizing the time and place to hold such a meeting. Oftentimes, players' only meetings occur immediately after a game, can last 10 or so minutes and can get quite emotional. Players often don't think about what they're going to say and talk off the cuff.
The difference with this meeting by Spurgeon, Marcus Foligno, Kirill Kaprizov and the rest of the leaders was that it had substance to it.
"I think (Spurgeon) and the other leaders had an agenda of things that they wanted to talk about," Hynes said. "I think sometimes in that setting, it was good where they can just be together and they can talk and really get to the root of some mindset things. I don't know exactly what was said in the meeting, but I think it was well done by Spurgey and the other leaders on the team."
Now, none of this will matter if the Wild go out Tuesday night and end the homestand with a loss to the Nashville Predators.
But in a league where it's hard to make trades, the answers to all the Wild's early-season problems most likely lie with the 22 players in that dressing room. All indications are that Hynes is safe, so it's up to the current players to sort things out, diagnose everything that has been ailing them and find solutions.
The Wild had won once in their previous nine games and had been downright awful in front of their home crowd this season. They're bleeding goals. Their penalty kill, so bad the past few seasons, is getting worse. And confidence was beginning to shatter as everybody searched for answers.
They've been fighting consistency issues. Other than the game in Washington, every loss has been winnable at some point, but they have made too many mistakes in games that have turned things upside down. And as Gustavsson said honestly after Saturday's win, though the Wild have felt good about large parts of their game, until you start winning consistently, "you have to fake it a little bit" and portray confidence even when it's waning.
"You fake it to the outside and show that you're confident," he said. "But it's a little nerve-racking on the inside there. And a win like this can change it and start building that momentum from the inside."
The Wild got a big game from Vladimir Tarasenko, whose start to his Wild career hadn't gone as planned. He scored a power-play goal and had two assists. Jonas Brodin, playing with a mangled finger, scored on a squeaker and had an assist. So did Vinnie Hinostroza. Marco Rossi had a goal and won six faceoffs. Joel Eriksson Ek had two assists, one in highlight fashion, and won 13 of 19 draws.
So this was an important win amid the frustration.
"Winning is nice, but I don't think that's the right word to use, frustration," Tarasenko said. "You need to, you know, feel poise. I feel like the games we lost before, some games we have very good moments and we're improving every game, and it's nice to get a win, obviously, but it's important to take the momentum with us, get some rest and get ready for next game."
The message of Friday's meeting, Tarasenko said, was to "find an identity of the team and you play more consistent. When we go up and down, it's hard to play always and keep the same plan -- play a long, grinding game, try to eliminate turnovers and make other teams work for the chances."
And in the third period, when the Canucks pushed and trimmed the deficit to 4-2, Tarasenko said it was a much-needed test to see how the team would react. Instead of quitting or letting mistakes compound, the Wild continued to play north, established a good forecheck and got as close to a 60-minute effort as we've seen this season on home ice.
Hinostroza thought Friday's meeting was largely why.
"We really talked about things," he said. "We know how special this group is. Every piece of the puzzle is there; we just got to put it together. Every team I've been on -- and I've been on a lot -- every team I've been on has gone through something like this. Whether it's later in the season or the middle of the season, it just so happens to be right at the beginning when we have high expectations. It's only one win; we're definitely not out of it. We've just got to keep getting better and keep playing Wild hockey.
"This is a new month. We're 1-0 in this month; if we just stick to it, we can turn this whole thing around. But it's going to take a lot of hard work and sticking to the plan."
Hynes hopes Friday's meeting will bring the team closer together and lead to more wins and a November turnaround after a miserable October.
"Sometimes when you get tested, particularly early in the year, it can be a real positive for your team and bring it together and get to the root of some things that weren't there for large majorities of the month," he said. "We know it's there, and now it's getting to it. I think that's positive, but anytime you go through some of these adverse situations, it's hard. It's hard on everyone, right? You have to work through it. You have to dig in on certain things. I think we did that tonight. And now the challenge is I think everybody deserves a good day off (Sunday) after the win, and come back refocused again on Monday, and then we continue to move forward and see if we can make November a much better month than October."