The Minnesota Wild received some scary news this past weekend as star defenseman Brock Faber needed to undergo surgery for a skull fracture he suffered in the team’s preseason finale.
Faber suffered the injury when he was hit in the head with a shot by Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen at the 10:24 mark of Friday’s second period. After initially staying down on the ice, Faber skated to the bench under his own power and actually played the rest of the period before not returning after the second intermission.
Brock Faber hit in head by shot from Miro Heiskanen
“He just had a serious surgery and an injury, so we’re just gonna update you guys when the time’s right,” Wild general manager Bill Guerin said Tuesday. “But he’s doing well. He’s doing really well, which is good news. And we’ll just follow the doctors’ leads.”
When asked why the team’s training staff allowed Faber to return to the game at all, Guerin said, “He seemed okay. As things progressed, we had to pull him.”
The 24-year-old defenseman skated 24:41 of average time on ice per game last season, which ranked 13th in the league. In 80 games last year, he recorded a single-season career-high 51 points (15g, 36a) for the Wild and was set to resume his first-pairing responsibilities next to Quinn Hughes this year.
With Faber out, Jared Spurgeon will move next to Hughes on the club’s top pair, while Olli Maatta, Jonas Brodin, Daemon Hunt, and Zach Bogosian fill out the rest of the defense corps.
“Brock’s a great player,” Guerin said. “He’s a big player for us. It’s always going to affect your team when guys like that are out. 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. That’s what we’re doing here now.”
The Wild open their 2026-27 regular season on the road against the Nashville Predators on Thursday.
