The Minnesota Wild will be without one of their star players to start the season.
Brock Faber suffered a skull fracture and underwent surgery on Sunday, the team announced Tuesday. There is no timeline known for his return.
The 24-year-old defenseman sustained the injury during the second period of a preseason game on Friday against the Dallas Stars when he was hit the head with a deflected puck.
General manager Bill Guerin stated the surgery was successful and Faber is resting 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, per The Athletic. “But he’s doing well. He’s doing really well, which is good news. And we’ll just follow the doctors’ leads.”
Faber went down on the ice and held the left side of his head, near his left ear hole, as assistant athletic trainer Brian Grogesky came out to check on him.
He stayed in the game, but was later removed in the third period and taken to the hospital.
Guerin was also asked by reporters why Faber wasn’t immediately removed from the game.
“Yeah … there wasn’t. You know, it just didn’t … he seemed OK. As things progressed, we had to pull him,” he said.
The Wild went on to lose the game 2-1 and have placed their star on injured reserve indefinitely.
Faber, who won an Olympic gold medal earlier this year as a member of the 2026 Team USA’s men’s hockey team, is coming off a career year after recording 15 goals and 36 assists for 52 points across 80 games.
During the playoffs, he tallied 10 points across 11 games when the Wild took down Dallas in the first round before losing to Colorado in five games.
The Wild will miss him to start the season as Faber was set to make a star defensive paring with Quinn Hughes. It’s likely Jared Spurgeon will now fill that role while Faber is out.
“Brock’s a great player,” Guerin added. “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.”
Minnesota’s season kicks off Thursday in Nashville.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
