BOSTON — There is a cliché in sports, one that very much applies to the Boston University women’s hockey team this year, about stepping into the spotlight.
It’s figurative, self-explanatory and used all the time. But if you looked at BU’s situation entering the season opener — a roster that lost almost all of its top scorers, a group of young forwards that now had to replace those goals, a team that spoke ad-nauseam about ‘The Foundation’ it would establish under its second-year head coach — well, yeah. Stepping into the spotlight was a pretty good way to put it.
But then the metaphor got real on Tuesday evening at Agganis Arena. The Terriers’ swanky new home put on a show for Tara Watchorn’s new-look team. A rousing pregame hype video set the scene as BU took the ice. When it was time to introduce the starters, the lights went out. A glaring white strobe followed each one as they skated to the blue line.
Which meant these Terriers were literally stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
Suffice it to say, that kind of introduction wasn’t happening back at Walter Brown Arena.
“That hype video,” BU graduate captain Tamara Giaquinto said, “was just amazing.”
And by the final horn, her team’s performance — specifically on offense, where a lot of the uncertainty resided — was pretty amazing, too.
Boston University 7, Merrimack 1 was the final and it should’ve been more.
A landslide, a rout, a drubbing. Whatever you want to call it. But also, for an offense that came in with far more questions than answers: A lift-off.
“We get to feel good about the things we did well,” BU head coach Watchorn said.
It’s difficult to find a place to start, but try here: the Terriers (1-0-0, 1-0-0 Hockey East) got two goals from their fifth-year captain, one from a graduate transfer, one from a senior transfer, another from a sophomore and two more from freshmen. The distribution of all those assists looked similar.
“I think the special part is that it came from everyone,” Giaquinto said.
It was the most BU has scored under Watchorn, and the Terriers did it with 33 shots on goal, a remarkable 21 percent goal rate. For reference, the Terriers’ rate across a frustrating 2023-24 season was 8.3. Technically, BU is on pace to score 151 more goals this season (238) than they did last (87).
One-game samples are obviously a fake science. And it was Merrimack (0-2-0, 0-1-0 HEA). But for this unproven BU offense, that’s quite a start.
“It was great,” Watchorn said.
The best of the bunch came from star freshman Lola Reid (one goal, two assists), who brought the house down three minutes into the second period with a brilliant solo goal, slipping past a Merrimack defender at the circle before deking Warriors’ goalie Calli Horgath for a tap-in.
Watchorn spoke of ‘pretty goals’ when asked about her first standout recruit after an exhibition win over Concordia last week.
On Tuesday, she added: “I might have to thank her for making me look so smart with that comment.”
Not that Reid was the only player that made Watchorn look good.
Four minutes after Reid’s stunner, senior forward Christina Vote slid a pass across the crease into the waiting stick of graduate forward Lindsay Bochna for another tap-in. There was yet another tap-in, also created by Vote, back in the first period, but junior transfer Riley Walsh’s shot hit the post of an empty net. Vote got that second assist eventually, setting up sophomore forward Clara Yuhn on a breakaway late in the third. Yuhn, BU’s leading point-scoring returner, buried it.
“We were willing to go to the hard areas,” Watchorn said, “but also able to finish in such a skilled way at the same time. And it’s nice when both of those things come together.”
And when it all does come together for this offense, it’s a unit with real teeth. Much was made of the players BU lost in the offseason — and for good reason — but perhaps that conversation didn’t value the remaining untapped potential on the roster enough.
Reid and Vote were excellent Tuesday. Giaquinto scored twice off two pristine slapshots on the power play. Luisa Welcke and Lilli Welcke probed throughout the contest; linemate Walsh found herself in excellent positions all night. Even sophomore forward Alex Law, who was relegated to the last rung of the lineup as she returns from injury, looked explosive and creative with the puck at her stick.
And you could keep going down the line. “A lot of people also stepped up,” Giaquinto said.
Point is — there’s talent out there.
Whether or not BU can make use of it consistently remains to be seen. This was still only Merrimack, a team voted ninth in the conference preseason poll that did itself no favors on Tuesday, sending BU to the man-advantage six times (BU went 3-for-6). And even in the 7-1 romp, the Terriers were shaky at points; in the final minutes of the first period, for example, BU was fully on its heels. A trip to No. 2 Minnesota for a two-game set awaits the Terriers this weekend, and that will be a test multiple levels harder.
“We’re going to get to see where we’re at,” Watchorn said.
They sure will. But after that opener, one thing is clear. There are plenty of goals in these Terriers.
They just need to score them.
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