Greer bolts for the Q; Oksanen injury forces staff to add another forward

The Terriers lost some serious depth this past week as the injury to Ahti Oksanen is now being reported as more serious than originally anticipated. They still plan to reevaluate him in the next few weeks but he is crucial to their ability to score goals from the forward position. Hopefully he can return at some point this season but it is seeming less and less likely after he suffered a shoulder injury in the Terriers last game of the first half against Quinnipiac.

Re: Oksanen- Sources I talked to say nothing has been decided as far as when (or if) he'll be able to return.

— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin9) December 17, 2015

Four Terriers taken in NHL Draft

                                                              Photo Credit to Indy Star

Four current/future Boston University Terriers were taken in the first 50 picks of the NHL draft this weekend. Star rising sophomore Jack Eichel was taken second overall as expected by the Buffalo Sabres where he will eventually join former linemate Evan Rodrigues in the organization. The second Terrier taken was Eichel's classmate,AJ Greer who went 39th overall to the Colorado Avalanche.Greer will most likely spend 2-3 more seasons on Comm. Ave before making the jump the professional ranks however. Jakob Forsbacka-Karlsson went 45th to the Boston Bruins and Jordan Greenway went 50th to Minnesota Wild. Both of them will be freshmen on the team this coming season and expect to make immediate impacts with classmate Maxim Letunov who was a second round draftpick in last year's draft.

NHL Draft Preview

The much anticipated 2015 NHL draft will take place this weekend in Florida where our boy Jack Eichel will be one of the top two picks. A lot of dumb Canadians are saying overrated CHL phenom Connor McDavid will go #1 overall and he probably will but that is more of a reflection of how dumb Edmonton management is than anything else. There are plenty of BU incoming freshmen and current players that have a chance to be drafted this weekend. The first round is Friday night with rounds 2-7 coming on Saturday starting at 10:00am.

Top BU Prospects
1. Jack Eichel- Top 2 overall pick
2. Jordan Greenway-1-2nd round
3. Jacob Forsbacka-Karlsson- 2-3rd round
4. AJ Greer- 2-4th round
5. Johnny McDermott(2016)- 4th-6th round
6. Brien Diffley-5-7th round
7. Robert Carpenter-6th-7th round

These 6 prospects are only a fraction of the great job Quinn and Co have done in the past two years on the recruiting trail as they look likely to have 2-3 first round picks in next year's draft as well as possibly top 10 picks in the following two drafts.

Jack Eichel told NHL.com that he has a pretty good idea of what he will do regarding going pro or returning college and will make a decision quickly following the draft. He really can't go wrong either way. The benefits of the NHL are obvious but everything indicates that Eichel is also seriously considering returning to school for a second season. As a BU fan, you obviously are hoping that he returns to Comm. Ave but he certainly can't be faulted for turning pro and if anyone says anything negative about his decision either way, they will feel the full wrath of BSRS.

The 2015-2016 schedule also was released this week.There are going to be some great non conference games at Agganis this year including Michigan, Denver, and Wisconsin Bentley. The Connecicut away trip to Yale and Quinnipiac along with Red Hot Hockey vs Cornell at Madison Square Garden are also highlight of the schedule along with the rest of the usual Hockey East foes including BC, PC, Lowell and the rest of the teams that suck. The only time the team will get on a plane will be the last weekend of the regular season when they travel to South Bend.

Guest Post from @BurntBoats

Editor's Note: This is a guest post from @burntboats on twitter and you should take the time to read it if you are a BU hockey fan or if you root for another college team and want to become depressed.


If you’ve been following @BurntBoats for any period of time you know by now that possession stats have proven to be a valuable tool when evaluating hockey teams (if you haven’t and you want to learn, tweet at me and I’ll send you links to things written by people smarter than me). Obviously Eichel is a generational talent and comparing what he did to the prior year’s team is beyond unfair, so I have been comparing this season’s 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines to the prior year’s entire roster on twitter all season, this is my final comparison:

BU 2013-14 possession [5v5 Corsi] (35 games): 44.8%

Now who were the key players from 2013-14 who weren’t on the lines 2-4 in 2014-15?

Half of Baillargeon (Mono)
Half of Ahti (split 14-15 on 1st and 2nd lines)
O’Regan (1st line all of 14-15)
Noonan (graduation)
Half of Rodrigues (split 14-15 on 1st and 2nd lines)
Grzelcyk is a wash as he missed almost half of 2013-14 with an injury and likely spent about half of his 2014-15 with the 1st line.

So this year’s 2nd-4th line lost 3.5 of the best players from last year’s team, they and a handful of role players were replaced by a rotation of four freshman forwards and four more freshman defensemen. This year’s group had the advantage of playing against easier opponents than last year, as this year’s 1st line took up the majority of other teams’ top unit’s ice time. They had the disadvantage of score effects from playing with a lead most of the time, instead of from behind.

All these factors work to somewhat counterbalance each other, my rough educated guess is their net effect on possession is slightly positive, but under 2%.  So if this year BU’s 2nd-4th lines were around 46% that would be equivalent to last year, if they were at 48% that would represent a substantial but reasonable improvement, anything over that would be quite the turnaround.

BSRS Weekly Awards

We are a little late this week with the Wednesday night game so we apologize as we know many people plan this weeks around this post...

Greg Jennings Award- given to the Terrier who best exemplifies the qualities of Greg Jennings through doin' shit and putting the team on his back. (YOU CAN'T STOP HIM)



Winner- Cason Hohmann, F- Hohmann has potted goals in his first two games since returning from a first half shoulder injury. He certainly makes a difference in this offense as he has posted 2-1-3 in the first two games of the second half.  Hohmann may not be the biggest guy on the team but he certainly knows to put the puck in the net even with a bad shoulder. He is just like Greg Jennings except he has a broken shoulder instead of a broken leg but still finds a way to put the team on his back.

Joe Pereira Trophy- Given to the Terrier who, through grit, hard work, and determination helps the team to victory on and off the scoresheet. Just like Joey did. (Interview can be read here)