EA Sports Slots Faber With the Elite. His Blue Line Still Needs Help.

EA Sports placed Brock Faber alongside Cale Makar in NHL 27's top defensive rankings, a recognition that tracks with what the young blueliner produced last season: 10 goals, 18 assists, and a plus-12 rating while averaging 24.5 minutes of ice time per game over 49 contests — the heaviest workload on Minnesota's blue line by a significant margin.

The timing is notable. With Jonas Brodin and Zach Bogosian both listed as out and no return timeline public, Faber enters training camp as the unquestioned anchor of a defensive corps that has thinned considerably over the offseason. The five-player injury cluster — Brodin, Bogosian, Filip Gustavsson, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Charlie Stramel — remains intact heading into camp, and the blue line picture in particular has no obvious short-term resolution.

A video game ranking does not change any of that. What it does is confirm that the league has noticed Faber's ascent, and that Minnesota's reliance on him is likely to grow rather than shrink until the injury situation clears.