Brickley is back for Mavericks

Minnesota State should get a nice boost this weekend when sophomore defenseman Daniel Brickley returns to the lineup after missing eight games with an upper-body injury.

Brinkley returned to practice in full this week and will get in a game for the first time since Oct. 22 at Alaska when he was hurt in the third period after appearing to lose an edge and crash into the boards with a checking player falling on top of him. Coincidently, the Mavericks will be hosting the Nanooks on Friday and Saturday in Mankato.

“It’s been tough watching the team play when you want to be out there,” the sophomore said after practice Wednesday. 

Brickley has been doing a lot of skating after practice in recent weeks with student-assistant Tim Jackman, so his conditioning should be up to speed, he said.

Brickley turned the heads of fans and pro scouts alike over his first five games of the season, scoring 10 points, nine of which were assists, and helping MSU get off to a 5-0-0 start.

The Mavericks lost the game in which he got hurt and are 3-4-1 since.

“I have to give it up to the guys; the team is real close,” Brickley said. “We all bonded well, and it translated to the ice. The power play was working well at times. We knew where everybody was going to be, and we were all on the same page and meshed really well. We just have to get back to that.”

The Mavericks averaged 4.8 goals per game and were 30 percent on the power play in their first five games. Since then, they’ve averaged 2.33 goals per game and are 12.2 percent with the man advantage.

Read more in The Free Press story here.