Breaking: Jared Spurgeon signs new deal worth over $50 million.

The Minnesota Wild made a bold move in the middle of the summer when the fired general manager Paul Fenton in one of the quickest oustings of an National Hockey League general manager I can remember. That move was prompted by a difficult and poorly timed search for a new general manager in which the Wild eventually settled on long time NHL player turned NHL executive Bill Guerin as their man. 

We can now say that the Bill Guerin in Minnesota has officially begun however because on Saturday the Wild's newly appointed general manager made his first big move since taking over the position when he signed veteran defenseman Jared Spurgeon to a long term contract extension. According to an announcement made just moments ago via the Wild's official website, Spurgeon and the Wild have agreed to a new 7 year contract extension that will see Spurgeon earn a whopping $53,025,000 million over the course of this new deal. That breaks down to an average annual value and salary cap hit of $7,575,000 million for Spurgeon and the Wild, a deal that long time fans of the organization will no doubt be very pleased with.

The talented defenseman was rumored to have already opened negotiations with the Wild on a new deal while Fenton was still general manager of the organization, but no doubt his sudden and unexpected termination put at least a temporary wrench in those talks. That being said though Spurgeon, who was drafted in the sixth round (156th overall) of the 2008 National Hockey League Entry Draft by the New York Islanders, has been a career long member of the Minnesota Wild playing in all 591 of his career games under the Wild umbrella. There seemed to be little appetite from either side here to part ways and no doubt that played a major role in both sides being able to come to terms on a deal so quickly after Guerin being hired as the new general manager.

As mentioned prior to this signing Spurgeon has appeared in 591 career NHL games, throughout his career he has 70 goals and 178 assists for a combined total of 248 career points from the blue line. Spurgeon has become a solid fixture on the Wild's blue line and now he will continue to be for several more seasons to come.