Maine forward Gustav Nyquist was cleared to play in this weekend's series against No. 1 Boston Univeristy.

Maine Coach Tim Whitehead said Nyquist received medical clearance this morning, less than a week after injuring his neck in last Friday's 4-1 loss at New Hampshire. While there was some lingering stiffness in his neck throughout the week, Nyquist skated yesterday in practice.

Nyquist is Maine's leading scorer with nine goals and 11 assists.

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BU is fresh off its Beanpot win Monday over Northeastern, and freshman goalie Kieran Millan made 23 saves in the 5-2 win over the Huskies. Millan is 18-1-1 this season for the Terriers.

"He's steadied the goaltending and then some," BU Coach Jack Parker said of Millan, a native of Edmonton, Alberta. "This year it's been a big plus for our club, whether it was Kieran or Grant going early, and Kieran took over the spot and ran with it. He's cool, calm and collected. What he's done is that he's stopped pucks and he's made us a little less jumpy. He's almost made everyone else much more calm out there."

Millan leads Hockey East with a 1.65 goals-against average, ahead of two more freshmen - Maine's Scott Darling (2.07) and Vermont's Rob Madore (2.08).

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Whitehead gave one key to this weekend's series - Maine needs a strong start in order to remain competitive.

"We have to compete harder than we did down at their rink," Whitehead said. "We didn't compete hard, shift in and shift out. (BU) had a good game and deserved to win, but we didn't put our best foot forward. We weren't physical and we didn't win the loose pucks."

BU is a team that will capitalize on the opposition's mistakes, and a team that will pounce on turnovers.

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With Nyquist back for this weekend's series against Boston University, the Black Bears are relatively healthy entering these two games. While nothing catastrophic has happened to the Black Bears (yet - let's revisit those words after the weekend), here's the question - is the lack of major wear-and-tear a sign of solid preservation, or a sign of not putting enough on the line?

Strictly a rhetorical question.

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