Minnesota Wild defenceman Brock Faber resumed skating with the team earlier this week as he inches closer towards making his season debut after sustaining a fractured skull during the pre-season on Sept. 25.
Faber, 24, was struck near the left ear hole by a shot in an exhibition contest against the Dallas Stars, and was later taken to hospital where he would undergo surgery two days later after his condition worsened.
“It could have been a lot worse if, one, if I got hit harder in that spot, and two, if I didn’t get the medical attention that I did,” Faber said Friday after logging consecutive practices with the Wild. “I’m so glad to just put it in the past. It’s so good to be back.
“If it would have got me a couple centimeters lower, it just would have hit me in the ear and I’d had to maybe get a couple stitches on my ear. If it would have hit me a couple inches or centimeters higher, it hits me in the helmet and I’m fine. The area where I got hit, only a puck could fit there. And it just so happened that it hit me right there.”
The Maple Grove, Minn. native was cleared for a return to play protocol on Oct. 29.
He began working out last week and is expected to travel with the Wild on their three-game road trip beginning on Tuesday, according to head coach John Hynes.
“Even though he’s a workout horse, he couldn’t work out,” Hynes said of Faber. “He’s a genetically gifted kid too. So that helps. But to go from that to go right into playing, we just want to make sure that through our strength staff and trainers, including Brock, that the process from him is right, that he feels confident, that he’s going to be able to perform the way he can perform.”
“You get to training camp and it’s full-go, and then obviously snap of the finger and then you’re sitting on the couch for four weeks straight,” Faber said of his recovery. “I don’t know the last time I haven’t done any physical activity in that long.
“But that’s part of it. I needed to do that to heal.”
Faber scored a career-high 15 goals with 36 assists for 51 points in 80 games for Minnesota last season.
The 6-foot-1, 200-pound blue liner averaged 24:41 minutes of ice time last year, a number that grew to 29:44 in 11 Stanley Cup Playoff games during the spring.
With one of their top defenceman on the sidelines to begin the year, the Wild have not missed a beat.
Minnesota has played to a 12-3-3 record to open the year, and are leading the Western Conference with 27 points through 18 games played.
“It’s one of those things, they’re playing so well right now, I think I could get back and be OK,” Faber said. “I just want to get back and be 100 percent. ... I’m going to take my time a little bit more with this one than maybe I would have in the past just considering what the injury was. The last thing I’d want to do is get back too soon and something else pops up.”
Faber also rose to international hockey prominence in the past two years, helping the United States to silver at the 4 Nations Face-Off in 2025 before helping USA take home gold at the Milano-Cortina Olympics earlier this year.
The Wild close out a short homestand against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, before heading out on the road Tuesday.