The Minnesota Wild are starting to show cracks in their armor. With Filip Gustavsson sitting out his 3rd-straight game (with a mysterious lower-body injury that we still know very little about) and defenseman Jake Middleton recently placed on injured reserve , Marc-Andre Fleury & Co were destroyed 6-1 by the Florida Panthers late Wednesday.
It’s only one loss, right? Well… no, not really. The 20-8-4 Wild have now lost three of their last four games, and four of their last six. In those four losses, from Dec. 7 to Dec. 18, Minnesota has coughed up 20 total goals, including seven goals vs the Oilers, alone, and the six they allowed last night vs the Panthers.
But it’s no mystery what the Minnesota Wild’s biggest problem is, during this short losing stretch. The constant turnover in talent at the blue line — due to injuries that have made their way through Minnesota’s defensemen like a bad stomach flu — has finally caught up with this team.
Throw in the loss of No. 1 goalie Filip Gustavsson, who is 14-5-3 on the season with a 2.24 GAA and .922 SV%… and the Wild have looked like a shell of themselves. And what happened last night to Brock Faber isn’t going to help their situation.
Puck to throat lands Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber in hospital…
If you haven’t seen it yet, Faber took a wrist shot to the throat last night, something that wasn’t confirmed until late Thursday morning, by Michael Russo (The Athletic). Fortunately, it sounds like Faber will be okay.
But according to Russo’s update, the Minnesota Wild did have to take Brock to the hospital last night, in order to get their 22-year-old defenseman “checked out”. Further updates on his status are not expected today, as the Wild have the day off.
In slow motion, the floating puck that struck Faber last night almost appears harmless. That is until you try to locate where exactly it hit him. Shadows and blur made it impossible to know for sure, which is why the injury took so long to confirm. If you take the video frame-by-frame, however, you get a pretty good idea of why the Wild were concerned.
Not only did it hit him in the neck, it appears to have hit directly in the “Adam’s apple”, before tumbling down his body, past his left hand, and onto the ice near his left foot. Had the puck hit Faber anywhere else, the University of Minnesota alum probably wouldn’t even have felt it hit him.
There has been a lot of talk about hockey players wearing neck protection, in order to protect players’ necks from skate blades. This might be another reason why that argument should be brought back to the forefront.
Had Brock Faber been wearing a neck protector sleeve, that same shot would have hurt, for sure, but would he have needed a hospital visit? Would he have been able to re-enter the game? Those questions cannot be answered, but wearing one certainly wouldn’t have made this injury worse.
