Nathan MacKinnon, as Minnesota Wild fans probably remember, had a tremendous rookie year in 2013-14, winning the Calder Trophy after leading all first-year players in scoring and racking up 10 points against the Wild in a first-round playoff series.
But MacKinnon, by his own admission, succumbed to the whole “sophomore slump” phenomenon.
Asked recently why it can be such a challenge for a player in his second season, the Colorado Avalanche superstar and reigning Hart Trophy winner told The Athletic, “I think when you have a good rookie year, there might be a little less fear going into your second year, and fear can drive you.
“Your first year, you’re worried you won’t even be good in the NHL, and then once you think you’re a little good you can go downhill. I realized how much more commitment I needed from myself to be the player I wanted to be.”
In other words, MacKinnon said, “You get a little comfortable.”
Quinn Hughes also had a tremendous rookie year in 2019-20, leading all rookies in scoring. The only reason he didn’t win the Calder was that his competition was Cale Makar.
He, too, wasn’t overwhelmed with his sophomore season.
“It was a really hard year for me, personally, because it was COVID,” said Hughes, the Vancouver Canucks captain and reigning Norris Trophy winner. “We were inside for six months. I was living alone, so it wasn’t too much fun. I don’t think I had too much motivation to play. My details weren’t that good. And then on top of that, you’re playing (Connor) McDavid 10 times, (Auston) Matthews 10 times, Montreal, who went to the Stanley Cup, 10 times.
“And we lost (Jacob) Markström, (Chris) Tanev, (Tyler) Toffoli, and we just weren’t a very good team. All those things combined was hard for me. But then my third year, I thought I had a really good year. Fourth year a really good year. And then my fifth year, I was ready to do what I did last year.”
The context for the responses by MacKinnon and Hughes had to do with Brock Faber and how the Wild’s young star defenseman can fend off the risk of a second-year regression after a sensational rookie season that ended with him as Calder Trophy runner-up to Connor Bedard.
“For Faber, he doesn’t have to deal with the COVID and then hopefully, I think his team, they’re always good with the guys they have,” Hughes said. “If he has 60 points this year or 30, it’s not Judgment Day. Build your game so at 24, 25 you’re a great player and you have sustained success.”
Sage advice from a wise 24-year-old.
It’s hard to oversell how good Faber was last season, a year in which the former University of Minnesota captain almost tripled the number of games one would typically play during a college season — while playing with two cracked ribs the final two months and 27 games.
In 82 games, Faber finished sixth in time on ice per game (a rookie-leading 24:58) and skated 2,047 minutes, 53 seconds, the most by any NHL rookie since 2000-01 (the NHL officially started tracking time on ice in 2005-06). He scored eight goals, 39 assists (tied with Bedard) and 47 points and blocked a rookie-leading 150 shots.
Going up against opponents’ best players, Faber established new Wild rookie records for assists, blocked shots and time on ice per game and ranked second only to Kirill Kaprizov’s 51 points during a pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season.
Truth be told, the Wild aren’t worried about Faber taking a step back and neither is Faber, who has fielded questions all summer about how he intends to build on such an outstanding rookie year.
Training camp only reaffirmed the fact Faber wasn’t going to get complacent this offseason, even after the Wild signed him in July to the most lucrative extension ($68 million over eight years starting in 2025-26) in franchise history.
Not only is the 22-year-old with the build of a linebacker once again entering the season in phenomenal shape, he also dominated in his three exhibition games, racking up five points and a plus-6 rating, running the point on the Wild’s league-leading 52.9 percent power play and scoring a silky smooth goal in Chicago off a partial break.
Minnesota goal!
Scored by Brock Faber with 19:47 remaining in the 3rd period.
Assisted by Joel Eriksson Ek and Mats Zuccarello.
Chicago: 1
Minnesota: 4#MINvsCHI #Blackhawks #MNWild pic.twitter.com/QnWQjEvdEZ— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) October 5, 2024
In that preseason finale in Chicago, Faber and Jonas Brodin ate the Tyler Bertuzzi-Bedard-Teuvo Teräväinen line for dinner, with Faber finishing with a team-best 68 percent Corsi-for rating and on the ice for 13 scoring chances versus four against. At one point in the first period, Bedard challenged Faber by cutting to the middle of the slot. Faber stepped up on Bedard and the 19-year-old bounced off the Wild blueliner like he ran into a brick wall.
Bedard, who will be going head-to-head with Faber for years, has great respect for him.
“It was fun to see what he did and how he stepped in there playing 24, 25 minutes a night on a team that was competing for a playoff spot,” Bedard said. “It was impressive to watch. He was great, and to see him do that in his first year was fun to watch and follow. He’s gonna be a great player for a long time.”
So is Faber worried about Year 2?
“I feel like a lot of those sophomore slumps for a lot of people, or a lot of players, are based off stats and goals and assists,” Faber said. “A lot of the time, forwards go through a (sophomore) slump and it’s like, ‘Oh, they’re not scoring.’ But how I look at it is, I know the way I want to play the game, the way I want to affect the game. I can affect the game as much if I had a hat trick or if I didn’t have any goals but I was a great defender, I broke the puck out great and I did things like that.
“So I look at it a little deeper than that. I feel like whether I have 65 points or 25 points, I’m confident that I’m able to be a better hockey player this year.”
When Faber signed his extension over the summer, Wild president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin told him not to feel like he has to earn his new contract in one game. Guerin told him not to try to be somebody he’s not. To be Brock Faber.
Don’t ever change Fabes 🥹#BeyondOurIce x @TRIAOrthopedics pic.twitter.com/gKvnNGdHJA
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) July 29, 2024
“I love how Billy told him not to change,” said teammate Zach Bogosian, who knows high expectations as the third overall pick in the 2008 draft. “’Just keep being yourself’ is such great advice. Keep doing your thing. Pave your own way.
“There’s an expectation of you after a great rookie year that certainly can weigh guys down, but I don’t think that’ll happen with Brock because he’s got that mentality to try to be the best defenseman every single night. I love the way he plays, and I don’t think he really needs to change anything. I think he’s going to continue to grow and you’ll see him take that next step.”
Watching Faber this training camp, it has been clear last season may have just been the start of something special.
His skating is elite. His puck skills are elite. His shot is elite. His playmaking is elite.
Captain Jared Spurgeon has seen examples of players improving significantly jumping from level to level. He says Faber is so “hockey smart” that his offensive numbers likely weren’t able to reach elite status in college because of the talent level of the players around him. But now playing with NHL players who are on his same wavelength and skill level, the offensive numbers have caught up to the stellar defensive game that was advertised when he arrived from the Gophers.
“He is going to be a great, amazing player for a long time,” Spurgeon said. “There’s just something special about him: the way he skates and sees the ice and always makes the right play. He’s such a smart player and so fast that he can make such high-intelligent plays at high speed. I’m telling you, early in camp last year, every one of us watched him and were like, ‘Holy crap, this guy is unbelievable.’
“The other thing about him? He’s such a good, phenomenal person. He just has this way about him where he’s confident in his abilities, but in the most humble way. He doesn’t seem like a young guy who’s only played one full season in the league.”
To Spurgeon’s point, Faber was less enthusiastic about how good he was last season than others. He said he wants to “defend against the best players in the world better this year than I did last year. Everyone talks about how I played great, but also there were games where I was playing against those guys where I was horrible and they were great.”
He said the biggest learning lesson last year was how hard it is to defend in NHL.
“It’s stuff you can’t really learn in the offseason,” Faber said. “You can’t learn how to take a two-on-one against McDavid and Draisaitl. It’s when you’re thrown into the fire, that’s how you learn and when you make mistakes, that’s how you learn. And I made plenty of mistakes, obviously, and I learned a lot from those mistakes, offensively and defensively.”
Wild coach John Hynes already sees a marked improvement in his attention to detail when it comes to controlling his gaps, defending the rush and the ability to end plays in the defensive zone and quickly get the puck on the attack.
This could also be a big year for Faber, a 2022 Olympian and 2021 world juniors gold medalist, because USA Hockey will be inspecting his game while trying to choose seven defensemen to take part in the 4 Nations Face-Off, an appetizer to the 2026 Olympics.
Guerin is the GM. Hynes is an assistant coach.
“It’d be a huge honor and it would be incredible,” said Faber, who doesn’t expect any special treatment because his NHL GM and NHL coach are part of the decision process. “I wish it was like that in the pros, but I don’t think it’s like that. I don’t think having Billy as a GM here affects my chances to make the team for either (the 4 Nations or Olympics).”
Faber’s first priority is helping get the Wild back into the playoffs after a rare absence last season.
“Individually and as a team, there’s a little different feeling around the way we can perform this year and the way we should perform,” said Faber, who stepped into the 2023 playoffs for the Wild after going to the NCAA championship game with the Gophers. “There’s a lot of excitement to get back out there.”
(Photo: Melissa Tamez / Getty Images)
