Minnesota Wild's Brock Faber to make season debut just seven weeks after suffering skull fracture

Minnesota Wild defenseman and member of the gold medal-winning USA men's hockey team Brock Faber is gearing up for his season debut, less than two months after suffering a skull fracture.

Faber has been out of action since the preseason, when the Wild played their final tune-up game against the Dallas Stars.

A shot from Dallas' Miro Heiskanen hit Faber in the head, and he went down in a heap.

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He was able to skate off under his own power, but it was later revealed that the 24-year-old had undergone surgery for a fractured skull just days before the start of the season.

That's a horrific injury, so it's no shocker that Faber missed time. However, The Athletic's Michael Russo reported that he's ready to return to action just seven weeks later.

Yet another example of how NHL players are simply built different.

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"He’s ready to play, so we’ve got to play him," head coach John Hynes said ahead of the team's Saturday game against the Boston Bruins. "I think part of it will be putting him back into the situations that he can play in, and we will manage the minutes."

Hynes also said he expects to have Faber all in on special teams as well, getting time on both the power play and penalty kill.

That goes to show what a huge piece of the puzzle Faber is for the Wild. He's a stellar top-pair defenseman.

But what's scary for the rest of the league is that the team played pretty well without him.

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Despite Faber's absence, the Wild have a five-point lead over the Nashville Predators in the Central Division going into Saturday's 14-game slate.

Bringing him back will mean mixing up some defensive pairings, but a little time to get the chemistry back where it needs to be is a small price to pay to have Faber back in the lineup.