Every team deals with it. It is only a matter of time before the plague known as the injury bug affects your team.

For the men’s ice hockey team, the injury bug has been around for quite sometime and doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

“Over the last 10 games we’ve faced a lot of adversity with injuries,” head coach Rand Pecknold said prior to this weekend’s pair of defeats to visiting Niagara University.

Senior assistant captain Matt Sorteberg tore his ACL after only 11 games and is lost for the season.

Captain Jamie Bates also missed five games during the heart of ECAC play with a head injury.

Freshman defenseman Jake Bauer and Mark Nelson have also missed significant time with injury as well.

While the laundry list of injuries is lengthy, Pecknold remains confident in his team’s ability to fight through the adversity.

“It seems we have a different lineup every night,” he said. “But we have the depth to fill roles.”

There may not have been a more damaging pair on injuries than the two that occurred Friday night.

Sophomore forward Greg Holt and senior defenseman Dan Henningson, who Pecknold said has been arguably his most solid player thus far, were both hurt and unable to play Saturday night.

“Not having him (Henningson) killed us. Henningson has been our best player over the last 10 games. It really hurts our power play.”

Henningson leads all Bobcat defensemen with 13 points and is a recognized leader on the blue line.

“He was definitely a big loss,” sophomore forward Jean-Marc Beaudoin said following Saturday’s 5-3 defeat. “He’s really dependable, but we a couple guys to step up and fill in.