Brock Faber is back on the ice, and the Minnesota Wild defenseman says the road back from a fractured skull has moved faster than he ever let himself imagine.
Faber took part in Friday morning skate, a major checkpoint just six weeks after surgery following the preseason injury. He still won’t suit up Friday night against San Jose or Saturday night against Tampa, but he will travel with the team on next week’s road trip.
The injury happened on Sept. 25, when a puck struck the side of Faber’s head in a preseason game. At the time, he didn’t think much of it.
“When I got hit, to be honest, it didn’t even hurt that bad,” Faber recalled. “It just felt like a little bruise on your skull.”
He stayed in the game because he believed he was fine.
“I told them actually, ‘I swear, I’m actually good. There’s nothing wrong with my head,'” he said. “I guess I was wrong.”
There was little swelling and no bleeding, but a CT scan later that night revealed the fracture. Faber was hospitalized, had surgery, and spent several days at Regions Hospital before being released.
The news stunned him.
“It was really confusing to me,” Faber said. “You’d think a fractured skull would be like, ‘Oh boy, something’s wrong.’ I’ve taken a puck to the ankle that feels 10 times worse and kept playing.”
He didn’t go into detail about the medical complications that followed, but he did say there were scary moments along the way and made a point to thank the people who treated him.
“It could have been a lot worse,” he said. “If I didn’t get the medical attention that I did, who knows? I can’t give enough thanks to them.”
For Faber, the toughest part wasn’t the pain. It was the wait.
After spending the summer training and arriving at camp ready to go, he suddenly found himself stuck on the couch for weeks.
“Very boring,” Faber said with a laugh. “You train a whole summer, you get to training camp and it’s full go. Then, in the snap of a finger, you’re sitting on the couch for four weeks straight.”
He said he felt physically normal only a few days after surgery, which made the forced inactivity even more frustrating.
“My body feels normal. My head feels completely normal. I just can’t do anything.”
Now he’s been skating and working out for more than a week, and the next step is getting back into game shape. He said he plans to be cautious.
“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,” he said. “The last thing I’d want to do is get back too soon and something else pops up.”
Faber is also wearing ear guards attached to his helmet, something he said he likely wouldn’t be doing otherwise.
“It would be pretty dumb not to,” he said.
Still, he made it clear the injury won’t change how he plays.
“I love the game too much to let this affect me,” he said. “What’s done is done now. Injuries happen.”
He’s also been able to watch the Wild roll without him. Minnesota has gone 11-3-3 and remains one of the NHL’s hottest teams, something Faber says has made the recovery a little easier to handle.
“They’re playing really good hockey right now,” Faber said. “Honestly, it makes me feel so good knowing they don’t need me right now.
They’re flying around, they’re winning hockey games, they’re playing the right way. That makes me a little less antsy to get back sooner than maybe I’m ready.”
For now, he’s just happy to be back around the group.
“It feels so good,” he said. “I’m just excited to work back into this and get back to where I was.”
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