PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Over a month ago, in the locker room at Agganis Arena after the Boston University women’s hockey team’s 7-1 season-opening victory over Merrimack, head coach Tara Watchorn made what felt like an overzealous declaration.
“BU hockey upgraded?” she asked her group. “Check.”
It seemed a tad too soon because, after all, it was only Merrimack.
The sentiment stuck around, even as BU continued to stack wins. A sweep two weekends ago was only against conference cellar-dweller Maine. Last weekend’s sweep: only lowly Syracuse.
But this weekend it was Providence. A team picked to finish ahead of BU in the Hockey East preseason poll. A program the Terriers had only beaten twice in the previous four seasons. A series Watchorn said midweek was “going to be a great benchmark.”
And after the Terriers (8-3-0, 6-1-0 HE) completed the two-game sweep of the Friars (5-5-0, 2-4-0 HE) with a 3-2 win on Saturday at Schneider Arena, it’s becoming harder and harder to poke holes in Watchorn’s proclamation.
BU won its seventh straight — its longest win streak since the 2013-14 season — and continued its best start to a season in a decade. After finishing seventh and exiting in the first round of the tournament last year, the Terriers lead Hockey East with 18 points after seven games.
“I mean,” junior forward Luisa Welcke said, “that’s a pretty cool feeling.”
Welcke, who hadn’t scored this season despite playing on BU’s top line all year, sliced a rebound through PC goalie Hope Walinski’s near post at 18:11 of the second period to win it for the Terriers. She added an empty-netter at 18:45 of the third to seal it, and a 6-on-5 goal from the Friars a minute later was only a consolation.
Scoring rebounds has been a point of frustration for Watchorn, who spoke of the need for her team to improve in that area ahead of the sweep of Maine, when BU had scored only 6 goals in its previous four games.
The Terriers have scored 19 goals in the six outings since, many off rebounds or deflections around the crease.
“It just goes with making our offense goalie proof,” Watchorn said. “And if we look to play off the puck and anticipate where [it’s] gonna go, you’re going to be able to bury those against most opponents.”
Junior forward Clara Yuhn potted the game’s opening goal at 6:32 of the first, punching home a deflected shot from senior Christina Vote on the power play. Yuhn, BU’s top returning point scorer, has now scored three goals in the last four games after a completely anonymous start to the year.
The goal continued a mini resurgence of the Terriers’ power play, too, which went 0-for-24 after the season opener but is 4-for-11 over the last five games.
The Friars equalized midway through the second on the power play themselves, as sophomore forward and leading goal scorer Audrey Knapp buried a wrister from the circle past BU senior netminder Callie Shanahan, who was screened on the play.
Nursing a 2-1 lead in the final period after getting outplayed in the second, BU found an extra gear. It killed off an early Providence power play without allowing a shot on goal. Then, midway through the frame on another skater-advantage for the Friars, a routine save for Shanahan squirted into the mouth of goal, but the Terriers’ top-line kill found a way to clear it at 9:57.
“We got to generate a little bit more momentum, and we were rewarded for it,” Watchorn said.
The Terriers tied the Friars in shots, 11-11, in the third stanza despite protecting a lead and defending almost three minutes of 6 on 5.
“People are buying in and getting comfortable playing in those moments,” Watchorn said.
Shanahan, save for the one near-disaster, was again excellent, recording 22 saves. In eight starts this season, she boasts a .956 save percentage. It leads Hockey East by over a percentage point and is fourth-highest in the country.
“Having someone like Callie behind you always gives you that belief that we can play to our game plan and get the win,” Watchorn said.
She added that Providence “probably made it the hardest on us so far [this season] in our D-zone.” Yet over the two-game set, the Terriers still only conceded one even-strength goal.
But the defense and the goalie were the two things BU knew it could set its watch to entering the year. What it could not have foreseen, after a brutal year in front of goal in Watchorn’s first season, was an offense as deep and resourceful as the Terriers’ attack was against the Friars.
BU didn’t dominate — shots on goal were even after three periods on Saturday (23-23) and were plus-five in favor of Providence for the series — and it still found a way to outscore its opponent by five goals. BU’s first, second and third lines, plus the power play and even the penalty kill, all lit the lamp across Friday and Saturday.
That’s just the kind of year these Terriers are having.
A program that hasn’t won Hockey East in 10 years leads the league. It has the conference’s joint-leading scorer and its October Player of the Month (freshman Lola Reid). It’s got the Defender of the Month (graduate captain Tamara Giaquinto) and Goaltender of the Month (Shanahan), too.
And after winning only 14 times in 35 tries last season, the Terriers have won eight of 11.
“It’s all in our control,” Welcke said. “If we stick to the details and keep playing how we’re playing, we will have a pretty good season.”
As for Watchorn — who made that convicted declaration after Game One, then took it a step further by asserting the program has both Hockey East and National Championship aspirations in the weeks that followed — she didn’t appear all that satisfied after perhaps the biggest weekend of her two-season tenure.
“We’re not settling for this,” she said. “We want more.”
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