Minnesota Wild rookie Brock Faber will face-off against former Gopher teammate and now Arizona Coyotes' rookie Logan Cooley tonight for the first time in the NHL.
ST. PAUL - Logan Cooley and Brock Faber, both rookies in the NHL, will square off against each other for the first time this season in what could be years of battles.
Both Cooley and Faber took the leap to the NHL after they fell short of the National Championship with the Minnesota Golden Gophers in a heartbreak fashion last year. Faber immediately signed with the Wild and played in six playoff games with Minnesota after his college season ended. Cooley took some time in off-season to make a decision but ultimately chose to sign his entry level contract with the Arizona Coyotes.
Tonight, Cooley and Faber will face off against each other for the first time this season when the Coyotes take on the Wild at 7:00 p.m.
"I played World Juniors with him and obviously last year with Minnesota," Cooley said on Faber and if it's going to be weird to play against him tonight. "He’s such a special player and an even better guy off the ice so it's definitely gonna be pretty cool to compete against him. I'm looking forward to it."
Last season for the Gophers Cooley put up 22 goals and 60 points in 39 games for Minnesota. He finished as a Hobey Baker Award finalist with teammate Matthew Knies but it was Michigan's Adam Fantilli that won the honors.
Faber, 21, played three years at the University of Minnesota where he put up seven goals and 53 points in 97 career games and now has two goals and 20 points in 41 games for the Minnesota Wild this season.
"No. I mean, you see what he does on a nightly basis," Cooley said on if he is surprised to see how good Faber has been this season for the Wild. "I could see it when we were at World Juniors and when we were at the Gophers. Just the way he competes and just how much he loves the game too. It's really fun to see and I'm happy to see him having success."
Cooley, 19, has gone through some ups and downs this season with the Coyotes but has found some success in his game recently. The former Gopher star has three goals and 20 points in 40 games for the Coyotes but has two assists in his last two games.
Throughout the year, Cooley has kept up with his former Gopher teammates in Jackson LaCombe, Ryan Johnson, Faber, and Knies to check in and bounce ideas off them about how to play at the next level, since they are all playing in the NHL today.
But no one has helped Cooley more this year than former Wild forward Jason Zucker. The 5-foot-11 forward spent nine seasons with the Wild before he got traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins where he played for three and a half seasons before signing with the Coyotes before the year.
"I think a lot of these guys have helped me a lot but you know, one guy is Jason Zucker. He's been unbelievable for me," Cooley said on the former Wild forward. "Wheather that be on the ice but especially off the ice too. Just little things about the NHL life and little tendencies. Obviously he's been around for a while now so he knows. He's been through everything and it's really cool to kind of lean on him and use him for advice. He's been great to me."
But for Faber it's been a little different. He's developed an offensive role that we didn't see much of in College but has took off at the next level whereas Cooley has yet to really take that jump and produce at the NHL level like he did in college last season. Cooley will get there with more and more development as he only is 19.
Faber, who is two years older than Cooley, has been given the task of shutting down some of the NHL's best players as he has been on the ice for almost 30 minutes a night throughout the season. He currently averages 24 minutes and 47 seconds of time on ice a night which ranks first amongst NHL rookies. Faber averages about four more minutes than Simon Nemec who is second in TOI.
"It's his consistency. He's been very consistent night in and night out, game in and game out playing in that type of a role," Wild head coach John Hynes said on Faber. "To me that's impressive because you're can have the skill sets and you know how hard the league is with so many games.
"To me, the situations that he's played in are the hardest situations you can play. Whether that's matchups, top Power Play, top penalty kill, 4-on-4, 3-on-3, and all those types of situations. He's been really consistent in his game, he's been reliable. That's what it takes to have the talent that Brock has. But to take that talent to the highest level is that consistency, reliability and the ability to thrive in those situations, it's been great to see."
Tonight Faber will get a chance to shutdown Cooley and the Coyotes on home ice in a must win game for the Wild. Cooley and Faber have practiced 1-on-1's in practice throughout the years but tonight it could go beyond the practice sheet. Cooley could have a chance to beat Faber 1-on-1 like he did to former Gopher teammate LaCombe on the Anaheim Ducks for his first NHL goal.
"Yeah, it was fortunate enough to be on him," Cooley said with a huge grin on his face and a chuckle when asked what it was like to beat LaCombe 1v1 for his first NHL goal. "He didn't like that too much but that's expected."
Unfortunately for Cooley, Faber has been tasked to shutdown some of the league's best players this season like Connor McDavid, David Pastrnak, Elias Pettersson, Auston Matthews, and many more and Faber has done a great job with it.
Cooley may know Faber's tendencies more than the four guys listed above but we will see who will have the upper hand tonight when the two former Gopher stars face-off against each other.
"Yeah, maybe don't give any secrets right now," Cooley said on if he knows a thing or too about beating Faber 1v1. "But yeah, we'll see. Hopefully I could, you know, sneak a few by him."