Weekend Preview

The BU Terriers host two opponents to Agganis Arena this weekend as they look to bounce back from their loss at Union last weekend.  The USA U-18 team aka BU Jr comes to town for an exhibition game tonight followed by lowly Wisconsin tomorrow for a game that counts unfortunately for the Badgers. The US U-18 team has four BU recruits for next season on it with forwards Clayton Keller and Kiefer Bellows as well as dman Chad Krys and goalie Jake Oettinger. All four of these players are projected to be first round picks with Oettinger not being eligible until the 2017 NHL draft. Keller, Bellows and Krys are 1,2,and 4 in scoring on the team filled with NCAA recruits. Oettinger is 4-3 with a 2.72 GAA. It should be noted that Keller, Bellows and Krys have each individually outscored their three BC commit teammates(McPhee,Walker, Campoli) combined and that Oettinger starts over Wohl in goal. Another notable on the U-18 team is BU freshman Jordan Greenway's younger brother JD who is still uncomitted. As a defenseman, it is hard to see him coming to BU for next season with the guys they got coming already(Krys, Fabbro, Kolias) but Quinn never seems to have too many top end defensemen so you never know. This game will certainly be the more competitive game of the weekend and should be a good test to see how BU has improved it's d-zone coverage since last weekend where they had a few breakdowns.



As for the Saturday NIGHT game(not a 4:00 game so the old guys on USCHO will need something else to complain about), BU plays Wisconsin who is not good. Their coach, Mike Eaves, is a dead man walking this season. Any player who commits there for the future better have no other D-1 offers because I would rather play basically anywhere else(besides UAH or BC) until there is a new coach in place. They are 0-0-2 after coming off two ties to Northern Michigan last weekend at home. Wisconsin's one decent player is forward Cameron Hughes but the rest of the team, especially the defense is garbage. BU just needs to play their game and get decent goaltending and they will win the game no problem and get back to .500 on the season. Expect a few goals from the top two lines who played pretty well but were hold scoreless against Union. Ahti already has 6 shots on goal. He will take atleast another 6 on Saturday and based on his historical shooting percentage. One of those is going to go in. BU wins on Saturday 5-1.

Lineup Prediction(Saturday)
Oksanen-O'Regan-Greenway
Greer-JFK-Baillargeon
Olsson-Lane-Carpenter
Cloonan-Moran-Phelps

Somerby-McAvoy
Hickey-Fortunato
Diffley-Macleod

Maguire
LaCouvee
Prawdzik

Roberto will miss both games this weekend. Still a coach's decision. Fortunato will play, however.

— Boston Hockey Blog (@BOShockeyblog) October 15, 2015