Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber will be out indefinitely after undergoing surgery to repair a fractured skull from a puck that hit him in the head during the team's last preseason game.
General manager Bill Guerin announced the diagnosis on Tuesday, four days after the 24-year-old Faber was struck on the side of his helmet near the left ear hole.
“Brock's at home. He's doing well. He's just resting, and we're going to leave it at that,” Guerin said.
Faber immediately fell to the ice after he was hit by a shot from the point against the Dallas Stars midway through the second period at Grand Casino Arena, before eventually climbing to his feet and skating off on his own power. He returned after a TV timeout and played a few more shifts before being pulled in the third period and taken to a hospital once his condition worsened.
With the seriousness of the situation still on the minds of everyone with team at the practice rink on Tuesday, Guerin declined to answer a question about whether Faber would play this season.
“He just had a serious surgery and an injury, so we’ll update you guys when the time’s right,” Guerin said. "But he’s doing well. He’s doing really well, which is good news. And we’ll just follow the doctors’ leads.”
One of the many sources of excitement surrounding the Wild when they reported for training camp earlier this month was the opportunity for Faber to play an entire season paired next to star Quinn Hughes, who arrived in a trade with Vancouver last December.
The duo quickly forged a strong chemistry with complementary styles on the ice and became fast friends away from the rink as fellow members of the U.S. Olympic team that took home from Italy the first men’s hockey gold medal since 1980.
“We don’t always think the game the same way. Sometimes completely opposite, but the way he uses his feet allows me to read off him so easily, and vice versa,” Faber said after the team’s first practice on Sept. 17. “I think just that skating aspect allows me to be as aggressive as I want defensively and him to be as aggressive as he wants offensively.”
When Minnesota opens the season on Thursday at Nashville, Hughes will skate with 17th-year veteran and team captain Jared Spurgeon instead.
“He’s a special player who makes a lot of plays look easy that aren’t,” Spurgeon said. “Just be there to help out.”
Faber skated the ninth-most of any player in the NHL last season and had a career-high 51 points in 80 games, so his absence — however long it lasts — will leave a void.
“You don’t recover from it. He’s that good of a player,” Hughes said. “You’re going to miss him, but in saying that, we’ve got a good team, we’ve got a lot of depth, and we’ll just have to do our best. I think we’ve got a lot of great players in here.”
Hughes nears the start of the season with no contract extension yet
Hughes was a lot more concerned about Faber's health than his contract status, entering the final year of his current deal with no extension yet and the start of the season fast approaching.
“Today’s Tuesday. The season starts on Thursday,” Hughes said, “so we’ll see.”
Hughes said he has no problem with negotiations taking place during the season, a potentially distracting situation some players prefer to avoid.
“It doesn’t really faze me, I’ll be ready to play Thursday, and I’m expecting to be at my best,” Hughes said.
With Faber's situation front of mind, Hughes was also asked whether playing without the added security of a long-term contract would give him pause for the risk of injury.
“To be completely honest, I think any game I go into I’m a little nervous just because anything can happen,” Hughes said. “I don’t know if there’s going to be a game where I go into the national anthem where I’m like completely at ease, but that’s the sport we decided to play. I think that the league does a really good job of keeping the guys safe.”
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AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.
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See AP’s full NHL coverage here
Dave Campbell, The Associated Press
