Quoting: TanSor
He's underrated since nobody cares about the Wild on a national level. It's the reason we've only ever had 1 outdoor game, our national ratings are awful since we've been a really boring team for so long. You almost never hear our team mentioned across the national media.
I'd trade him because Fenton has made it a point that he wants to build on the fly to make our team younger, and a 29 year old Jared Spurgeon doesn't really fit that bill. Other than Dumba, Spurgeon has the most value of any of our "old core" so we could trade him for a very large return. Plus, we have Louis Belpedio, Filip Johansson, and Simon Johansson as RD prospects and pretty much all of those guys have ceilings of becoming top 4 D. Spurgeon is an extremely important piece to our franchise, I'd even go as far to say he's the heart of our team, but we have to start thinking about the future and with the emergence of a young Dumba as a 1st pairing quality player, I think it makes some sense to move Spurgeon. I would be extremely happy if we did decide to keep him, though.
To be fair, I don't really know about the national media in US, because I live in Finland. So I have no comments on that point. But generally, the winners will be remembered. That's a basic thing that combines all sports, whether it's a team sport or an individual one. Wild haven't been that successful, and in a sense, it resonates to the popularity. This is why for example Barkov is so underrated - because a player like him are pretty much stuck in a small hockey environment without true chances to become successful.
As of the changing point, I get where you're coming from. If the team starts to rejuvenate, Spurgeon doesn't really have a place in there.
I shall hope that Wild gets a nice return for him.
And btw, Wild is actually one of the more popular NHL teams in Finland, because in 2011 Granlund and Koivu were such a media sensations after they were big parts of our team winning the World Championships. After that, Wild has become a favorite of many hockey fan in here lol.