Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber underwent surgery Sunday after suffering a skull fracture from a deflected puck during a preseason game, the team announced Tuesday. There is no timeline for his return.
The 24-year-old was injured in the second period of Friday’s preseason finale against the Dallas Stars when a shot deflected and struck him near the left ear hole. Faber went down on the ice holding the side of his head as assistant athletic trainer Brian Grogesky came out to examine him. He remained in the game at that point but was later pulled in the third period and taken to the hospital.
General manager Bill Guerin said the surgery went well and that Faber is now recovering at home.
“He just had a serious surgery and an injury, so we’re just gonna update you guys when the time’s right,” Guerin said Tuesday, according to The Athletic. “But he’s doing well. He’s doing really well, which is good news. And we’ll just follow the doctors’ leads.”
Asked why Faber wasn’t removed from the game immediately after the hit, Guerin said, “Yeah … there wasn’t. You know, it just didn’t … he seemed OK. As things progressed, we had to pull him.”
The Wild lost the game 2-1 and have since placed Faber on injured reserve indefinitely.
Faber is coming off a career-best season in which he recorded 15 goals and 36 assists for 52 points across 80 games, and he added 10 points in 11 playoff games as Minnesota beat Dallas in the first round before falling to Colorado in five games. Earlier this year, he won an Olympic gold medal as a member of Team USA’s men’s hockey team.
His absence is a significant blow to Minnesota’s blue line, where he was expected to anchor a top defensive pairing alongside Quinn Hughes. Jared Spurgeon is likely to fill that role in Faber’s absence.
“Brock’s a great player,” Guerin said. “He’s a big player for us. So it’s always gonna affect your team when guys like that are out. But the biggest thing here is that he’s doing well, and sometimes you just have to put the hockey aside and worry about the human being, and that’s kind of what we’re doing here now.”
The Wild open their regular season Thursday in Nashville without their star defenseman.
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