In addition to his two injuries at Providence, O’Brien said he “got pretty sick when I was at the World Juniors. Honestly, it’s just been an unlucky year. Obviously, no one wants this to happen to them, but I haven’t really had to face too much adversity up until this point. I think it really put the fire back. Not that it wasn’t there, but after going through all these things, you realize how much you just miss playing hockey. It lit the fire for me to get that much better and get back on track.