Fracturing your skull is never something that will be defined as "not a big deal", but somehow each new update about Brock Faber continues to get more and more concerning.
That is, of course, assuming we actually get any tangible updates. Mum's the word from the Minnesota Wild ever since Faber suffered a skull fracture in the team's final preseason game. Chief among everyone's concerns is how serious the injury is, and not just from a hockey standpoint. Faber suffered a potentially life altering injury and the longer the Wild stay quiet the wider the opening becomes for speculation.
The Athletic's Michael Russo tried to address where things stand as best he could when he stopped by Dan Barreiro's Sunday Sermons. Even though details remain sparse, things don't sound great.
“The team hasn’t given any details other than no timeline right now, and obviously this is an injury that’s not typical of of hockey, and there’s a lot of things that go into it with the brain, besides just the bone healing," Russo said. "So, this isn’t just a cracked bone. There was a lot of stuff that was very scary behind the scenes that they haven’t disclosed, and that I don’t feel comfortable disclosing unless it’s on the record. But there was a lot of scary stuff."
We all knew it was a serious injury based on the initial reports of a skull fracture, but Russo essentially confirmed everyone's worst fears by mentioning Faber's brain. That's where this stops being a hockey thing and becomes something much larger and more concerning.
Again, without any offiical word form the team though we can only deal in speculation. Given the serious nature of the injury, that makes things even more serious. It also makes it tricky to navigate in terms of separating the human element from the hockey one.
Wild might have to tread water without Brock Faber for the foreseeable future
On the ice the Wild have managed to tread water out without Faber pretty well. The team won its first two games without him and boast a plus-five goal differential so far this season. It's an incredibly small sample size, but it's worth considering that the Wild have dealt with two ends of the talent spectrum defensively.
Nashville isn't exactly a powerhouse but they revamped their team this offseason in an effort to get back into the mix in the central. Boston is always a Cup contender and threw everything it had at the Wild in Minnesota's home-opener. In both of those games combiend the Wild allowed two goals, something that Jesper Wallstedt deserves credit for but it also a pretty glowing endorsement of the defensive pairings John Hynes is throwing on the ice without Faber.
How longs that can last is yet to be seen. Minnesota has an absolutely brutal schedule to start the season, with 14 of their next 20 games on the road including five straight games away from St. Paul.
It was said when he initially suffered his injury and will never be untrue no matter what the Wild do, but Faber is irreplaceable. All the Wild can do is tread water as best they can until he hopefully comes back but given this latest update from Russo it's not something fans should hold out hope for happening anytime soon.
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