Ryan Fitzgerald Out 4-6 Weeks With High Ankle Sprain

Last night, Jerry York revealed a possible timeline for Ryan Fitzgerald’s return to action: 4-6 weeks, after suffering a high ankle sprain, according to Michael Sullivan of The Heights.

Fitzgerald, a Boston Bruins draft pick, went down hard on Sunday against Minnesota after appearing to have a Gopher player inadvertently fall on or pin his leg down to the ice during a scrum in front of the net. It looked pretty bad as he was helped off the ice, and he had the angry look of a senior captain who knew he’d be missing some serious time.

High ankle sprains are notoriously difficult to predict in terms of a timeline, as it’s an injury that lingers and can really only be healed with rest; eventually, it will reach a pain threshold where Fitzgerald will be able to return, but it’s an injury that can recur.

The good news? 4-6 weeks is certainly better than what it could have been, and if there’s any time when you’re going to miss 4-6 weeks, it might as well be now. BC has three games in the next 10 days, but after that is off until December 27, when they’ll play two games in Pittsburgh.

If Fitzgerald misses 6 full weeks from the Minnesota game, he’ll miss a total of 6 games: North Dakota, Northeastern, @ Notre Dame, Quinnipiac, Pittsburgh game #2, and Frozen Fenway vs. Providence. He’d be back for January 13’s game at BU at Agganis Arena.