Minnesota Wild Defenseman Brock Faber Named Finalist for Calder Memorial Trophy

SAINT PAUL, Minn. – The National Hockey League (NHL) today announced Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber as a finalist for the 2023-24 Calder Memorial Trophy. The Calder Memorial Trophy is presented annually to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition. The winner will be announced at the NHL Awards show scheduled to be held June 27 in Las Vegas.

Faber, 21 (8/22/02), recorded 47 points (8-39=47), 150 blocked shots and averaged 24:58 of time on ice (TOI) per game while appearing in all 82 games this season. He led all NHL rookies in TOI per game and blocked shots while ranking T-1st (first among rookie defensemen) with 39 assists and T-2nd (T-1st among rookie defensemen) in points. The 6-foot-1, 208-pound native of Maple Grove, Minn., also established new Wild season rookie records for assists, blocked shots, and TOI per game and ranks second only to Kirill Kaprizov (27-24=51, 2020-21 season) for the team's single-season rookie point record.

Faber finished the season with 2,047:53 of TOI, the most by an NHL rookie since the 2000-01 season and the fifth-highest total among all NHL players this season. He skated a career-high 33:25 of TOI vs. Montreal (12/21), the highest single-game total by an NHL skater this season and third-highest total by an NHL rookie since the 2000-01 season. He recorded five games with 30-plus minutes of TOI on the season, four of which came within a five-game span from Dec. 14 to Dec. 21. According to NHL Stats, Faber became the only NHL rookie to play five games with 30-plus minutes of TOI in a single season since the league began tracking the stat in 1997-98. He also recorded a six-game point streak (2-7=9) from Jan. 15 to Jan. 25, the longest point streak by a rookie defenseman in franchise history and the second-longest streak by a NHL rookie this season.

Minnesota acquired Faber on June 29, 2022, from the Los Angeles Kings along with a first-round selection in the 2022 NHL Draft (Liam Ohgren) in exchange for Kevin Fiala. He was originally selected by Los Angeles in the second round (45th overall) of the 2020 NHL Draft.

Faber joins Kaprizov, who won the 2020-21 Calder Memorial Trophy, as the second finalist for the honor in Wild history, and becomes the franchise's 12th finalist for a Professional Hockey Writers’ Association (PHWA) award, joining Lady Byng finalists Jared Spurgeon (2022, 2021) and Mikael Granlund (2017), Bill Masterton finalists Mason Shaw (2023), Matt Dumba (2021), Devan Dubnyk (winner, 2015) and Josh Harding (winner, 2013), James Norris finalist Ryan Suter (2013) and Frank J. Selke finalists Mikko Koivu (2017) and Wes Walz (2003).

Connor Bedard and Luke Hughes are the other finalists for the 2023-24 Calder Memorial Trophy. Members of the PHWA submit ballots for the Calder Memorial Trophy at the conclusion of the regular season, with the top three vote-getters designated as finalists. The trophy was first awarded in 1932-33 to Detroit’s Carl Voss. From 1936-37 until his death in 1943, NHL President Frank Calder purchased a trophy each year to be given permanently to the League’s outstanding rookie. After Calder’s death, the NHL presents the Calder Memorial Trophy in his memory.

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