By Marisa Ingemi
BU News Service
It seems each week the Boston University Men’s hockey team overcome a new challenge. This week, that was finding an elusive road victory, and getting past a slew of injuries. They Terriers were able to accomplish both during a weekend split in Ann Arbor against the University of Michigan.
After a 4-0 loss on Friday night, Quinn stuck with freshman goaltender Jake Oettinger on the second night, and he allowed just one goal to the Wolverines during a 4-2 Terrier victory.
In addition to Oettinger’s stellar play, fellow freshmen Dante Fabbro and Patrick Harper had great games Saturday night, each scoring a goal.
BU had won just one game away from Agganis prior to Saturday, that being the first game of the regular season at Colgate. After a sweep at Denver, a tie at Matthews Arena, and then the loss to Michigan, BU finally was able to get in the win column on the road.
But the injury bug has been quite a nuisance this season, and the situation isn’t getting any easier.
When it was announced Clayton Keller would miss the majority of the season with a lower body injury, it was expected there would be a line shakeup. Following Friday night’s loss, during which Jordan Greenway centered the second line and Nick Roberto joined him on the wing, head coach David Quinn made a couple of dramatic moves.
Defenders Brien Diffley and Shane Switzer have barely seen any action all season, and they broke into the lineup on the wings of the third and fourth lines on Saturday. Neither contributed to the final score, but with Keller, Ryan Cloonan, and Niklas Olssen out of the lineup, the move didn’t hurt the Terriers.
Olssen should be back this weekend for a home-and home-against UConn, and Cloonan the week after, but thus far the Terriers have been able to survive the onslaught of injuries.
The Terriers knew they had a tough stretch to open the season, with contests against top 20 teams such as Michigan, Denver, Northeastern, and Quinnipiac, and they came out of it still a top-five team.
UConn has been a tougher team this season than in previous years, and playing at Hartford isn’t easy. But the toughest stretch of BU’s season may finally have wound to a close.
