Let's Talk About Brock Faber's Contract Extension

This episode is all about Brock Faber's mega contract extension and why some are skeptical about it.

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Creators & Guests

Host

HockeySheWrote

Wild Hockey Fan | Cozy Mystery Writer | Mom of 2 | MN Raised | She/Her | Hockey Takes that No One Asked For

What is Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast?

Her Wild Side combines hockey knowledge with a side of vibe checks. The weekly show will have game breakdowns, any topical news about the MN Wild, and fun things going on surrounding Wild's social media. This show aims to be informative while also sparking good conversation about the Wild and hockey in general without having to keep everything serious.

Hello,

welcome to Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast.

I am your hostess, Miki,

aka HockeySheWrote.

And I am coming to you from

my dining room today

because I was not planning

to do a podcast until the

big contract extension news

dropped this afternoon.

And for once,

I actually happened to not be busy.

I guess, I mean,

I was outside watching my kids play.

So that's kind of the reason

I'm in my dining room,

so I can still be available

if some emergency happens.

Um, anyway, it is July 29th.

So we are almost done with

one more day or one more

month of the off season.

And I was just looking,

we have just over one month

until the first preseason game.

Um, the first preseason game is, I guess,

no, it's not over one month.

I'm already like fast

forwarding through the summer.

Um,

It is just under two months

until the first preseason game,

which is September 21st.

So that is actually coming very fast.

And I could not be happier about that.

But let's jump into the

Brock Faber contract

extension that was just signed today.

OK, first of all,

we're just going to talk

about the specifics and

then we're going to talk a

little bit about some of the reactions

from people both within the

Minnesota Wild kind of fan

sphere and from people who

are not Wild fans necessarily.

So first of all,

this extension is eight years.

That is the longest that a

team can give one of their

existing players.

There are no bonuses.

He has a straight up 8.85

million average annual value.

which I did not write down,

but it's something like a

68 million total package.

It starts during the 2025-2026 season,

so he still has one more

season on his ELC with the Wild.

So technically,

from where we're standing right now,

we have nine years of Brock Faber.

it has a no move clause.

And then once he gets in the

fifth year of the contract,

he has a 15 team, no trade list.

Um, and he is right now, 21 years old and

That is creating a lot of

discourse around the league.

But let's first remember

that Faber played one whole season.

He's only played a full season in the NHL.

He also played when he

signed with the Minnesota Wilds.

I don't know if you can hear that.

That's my grandma's dog, Sophie,

who we are watching.

I don't know what she wants,

but she wants something.

But before the full season,

he played in...

a gosh, a handful of regular season games.

And then in six playoff

games and to the point

where like the first game he played,

they kind of were like, yeah,

let's just throw them out there.

They had already kind of

secured a playoff spot.

They were like,

let's just see what this kid can do.

And he impressed them so

much that they were like, okay,

let's put them in again.

Okay.

Like let's put them in the playoffs.

And that's kind of what I

don't think people

understand is that Brock

Faber has continued to be

challenged by the Minnesota

wild organization in general, you know,

the coaching staff and

every time that they've

issued him a challenge,

he has stepped up to the

plate and just knocked it

out of the park.

Um,

He, like I said, he stepped right in.

He did not look out of place

on an NHL team.

He did not look out of place

in the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs,

that series they played last season,

obviously.

And since then,

he has just upped his minutes,

upped his minutes, upped his minutes,

played first pairing last

season when the whole team

was just decimated with injuries.

And

you know,

took on this role where he could

do anything that they needed him to do.

You know,

they asked him to quarterback a

power play.

He did it.

Top unit.

Okay.

Like he had never done that in college.

And here he was in the NHL

quarterbacking the top

power play unit of the team.

He's just done it all.

And honestly,

the only point where he kind

of started to crack a

little bit this season, this past season,

was after there were so

many injuries that not only

was he playing 25 to 30 minutes a night.

a league that has 82 games a

year where he's coming from

college where they have

like less than half of that a year.

So he's already dealing with that.

Not to mention that he is

partnered up with Jake Middleton,

who is not necessarily a top pairing guy.

I mean, he is and he isn't.

And they're playing behind a

team that's made up of like

maybe three good players,

a whole bunch of guys that

play like a fourth liner,

which is not a bad thing.

It's just a different thing.

And like half of an AHL team.

And he was holding it all together.

No,

this podcast is probably going to be a

little bit shorter.

So what I'm going to do now

is I'm going to pause.

I'm going to put on my quick

little one minute ESPN Plus commercial.

And then when we come back,

I am going to talk more

about the reaction and such

around the leak.

So if you will just hold

tight for one minute and

watch slash listen to this ad,

I will be right back.

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Welcome back.

So first of all,

there are two very

different reactions to this

contract extension.

On the one hand,

we have Minnesota Wild fans.

Maybe you're not even a fan,

but Minnesota Wild,

there's not really a word other than fans,

but anyone who watches the

Wild consistently,

you don't have to like the Wild,

you don't have to root for the Wild,

but if you watch them consistently,

Pretty much everybody that

falls into that category

that I have seen has talked

about what a good contract this is.

How this is absolutely a steal.

This is exactly what

everyone thought it would be.

And we all know what we're

getting and we love it.

On the other hand,

there are plenty of people

around the league who are

making it known that they

think signing a 21 year old

to this contract is absolutely ludicrous.

And they also

Don't seem to know a damn

thing about Brock Faber,

which explains why they

think it's such a bad contract.

Not bad.

They just I get it.

Here's the thing.

I get it.

He is 21 years old.

That is very young.

Yes.

But first of all,

you need to remember that

Brock Faber is a Minnesota

boy born and raised in Minnesota.

He played for the University

of Minnesota Golden Gophers

for four years,

and then he stepped into the wild.

That means that everyone in

the Minnesota hockey world

has known about Brock Faber

for longer than just when

he's been on the wild.

You know, most hockey fans here,

I would say,

pay attention to hockey in general.

Now that doesn't mean that

they watch high school hockey.

That doesn't mean that they

watch college hockey,

but they're gonna be

reading about that news and

they're gonna know the names.

And Brock Faber is a name

that has been around for a while.

So Minnesota fans know what we're getting.

Brock has consistently been good.

He's consistently been

high-level defenseman.

So it's not a surprise.

I mean,

it's a surprise seeing how quickly

he adjusted to the NHL.

It's not a surprise that

he's there and has stayed there,

if that makes sense.

And yeah, I get it.

This is a big contract for a young guy.

But

I really think that people

who haven't paid attention

to the Wild in the past

season really don't

understand just how

terrible the season was.

And I'm not necessarily

talking about just points

wise or how many games they

lost or just the injuries

that were sustained,

the players who were injured,

how long they were out was

Awful.

I mean, it decimated the team.

It really did.

It took out the top scorers

and the top defensemen.

Like the veteran presence of

the team was out, just gone.

And like Jared Spurgeon,

captain of the team, top defenseman,

was out basically the entire season.

So you have this young kid

who has stepped in

And they keep kind of like,

even though they don't want

to have to put it all on the rookies,

right?

Like you don't want to do

that because that is going to,

it could backfire on you.

You know, like it could easily backfire.

Now,

more power to Brock Faber and then the

other rookie on the team last season,

Marco Rossi,

because they took on the

pressure and the two of

them were really the ones

that drove the team forward

and held it together so that,

They weren't great at all,

but they also were not

terrible for most of the season.

So I think people are really

looking at some of these

stats and kind of going like, well,

who cares?

But here's the thing.

Again,

Brock Faber held together the team

in his first NHL season.

He had 150 blocks.

He came away with,

I think it was 47 points.

It was eight goals and then 37 assists.

And he was actually here.

I wrote down a few stats,

which is he actually was

the NHL rookie with the

highest time on ice average

this past season.

He averaged just under 25 minutes a game,

I believe.

And he actually out of,

all NHL players,

he was sixth overall in

time on ice as a 21 year old defenseman.

He was putting up points,

even though he was never

really known as like a

super offensively skilled defenseman.

But he still managed to do that.

He stepped in and

quarterbacked the power

play when basically any

other defenseman that could

do that was out.

He played all 82 games.

And

I just I he also the Calder Trophy,

if it had been any other year,

he would have been an absolute shoe in.

The only reason he did not

win the Calder Trophy is

because he was up against a

generational talent.

That's it.

I think we also need to compare.

he's broken franchise records alongside,

you know,

just looking incredible in the

league as a whole.

He was,

he put up the highest point total

for a Minnesota Wild rookie

in franchise history.

And he came in second for

highest point total of a

rookie in the Minnesota Wild,

second only to Kirill Kaprizov.

So I just,

I think people are getting really stuck

on the wrong number in all of this.

He, he deserves this.

And actually, honestly,

I think most of us that are, you know,

in the paying attention

category expected him to have signed,

you know, 9 million plus per year.

So I actually think that he

took a slight discount and

you know why he did that?

He loves Minnesota.

He loves the state.

And if you know someone from Minnesota,

you probably know that most

of us are like that.

Like, you were born and raised here.

You love this state.

You know,

when you watch TV and they

mention Minnesota, everyone's like, hey,

hey.

He is the same way.

I mean,

he really just seems like this

incredibly sweet Minnesota

boy who cannot wait to

continue playing on his hometown team.

The other thing is that not

only did he give them a slight discount,

everyone's got a pretty

good feeling that he will

be the next captain of the

Minnesota Wild.

Jared Spurgeon has, I believe,

two more years left on his contract.

I might be off on that.

But just a handful more seasons.

And it would not be a

surprise to see Brock Faber

wear that C after that.

Not only was he captain of the Gophers,

he also just, even as a rookie,

came in and showed such

great leadership and such

great accountability.

He...

If you watched any of his

post game interviews,

he would be the first

person to point out when he

did something wrong.

He would own up to anything

that he even felt he slightly did wrong.

Even stuff where everyone else is like,

that was, that was not you.

That was not your problem.

And he was like, well, no, it is like,

we're a team.

This was my problem too.

So if you are someone who is

not sure about that number

and such a young age,

I invite you to watch a

Minnesota Wild game.

Watch the game and watch him

specifically because he's a

little bit like Jonas

Brodine where he doesn't make a mistake.

if there's a mistake that's been made by,

you know, either Faber or Brodine,

it is because something's wrong.

It's either they are injured

and they're trying to play

through an injury,

which at the end of the season,

we did find out that Brock

Faber had been playing through an injury.

I believe he was invited to

go to the men's world cup

championships over in.

Shut you up.

I don't remember.

That feels like so long ago.

But he actually turned it

down because he wanted to

rehab his injury and make

sure that he keeps his

training up through this

summer so that he can come

back and even get better.

Because I honestly feel like

he hasn't found his ceiling yet.

And if last season was his floor...

That is spectacular.

If the Minnesota Wild can

stay healthy next season,

I think we have a chance to

see him take even bigger

strides than he did last season.

So overall,

he has earned every single

penny of that eight year,

8.85 million dollar

contract.

He really has.

He has earned it both on the

ice through the way he's

played and off the ice

through the way that he has

been a leader and how much

he connects with the fan community,

the hockey community as a whole.

He does so much outreach and

he does so much to help

different charities and

support them that he just

deserves every single penny.

So

I would love to hear if you

have any questions or

comments that I could talk

about on the next podcast

about his contract, because honestly,

I know that I'm biased,

but I think it is

absolutely perfect for him.

So let me know.

And until then,

have a great week and I

will see you soon.