BOSTON — A couple of minutes into a third period that couldn’t have been much bigger, Neely Nicholson got into it a little bit. The whistle had stopped a scrum in front of the net, but the sophomore remained engaged with an opponent, a rendezvous that culminated in a brief shoving match and some choice words between the two. Tensions were high, as they tend to be when two nationally-ranked arch-rivals meet.
Then Alex Law skated over.
She couldn’t stop laughing. She eventually found Nicholson, her fellow sophomore, and when the five on the ice skated back to their bench, all of them, led by Law, wore huge grins.
It got to them at times. But the moment, ultimately, was not too big for Boston University women’s hockey.
It will go down as an agonizing 3-2 overtime loss to Boston College that ended a nine-game unbeaten streak. Yet when the Terriers look back on Friday night — when they outplayed the No. 11 Eagles in front of the biggest home crowd they’ve literally ever played in front of — they might not remember it as much of a loss at all.
It truly feels like BU is back, and never had it looked clearer. The No. 14 Terriers (9-4-1, 7-2-1 Hockey East) griefed early and fell behind five minutes in, then outraced the No. 11 Eagles (9-3-0, 6-1 HE) for a majority of the game before the tamest of shots from BC sophomore Julia Pellerin slid through the five-hole 1:16 into overtime to suddenly end it.
BU senior netminder Callie Shanahan — one of the nation’s top goalies — will want that one back, and ditto for the Eagles’ opening goal. Those two mistakes from perhaps the most reliable Terrier were the difference, and that’s just how thin the margins are in these types of games.
But when she was asked what her team’s performance against a high-level opponent said about BU, head coach Tara Watchorn didn’t hesitate.
“That we’re also a high-level opponent,” she said.
Outshot, 11-6, in the opening period, the Terriers were a completely different team out of the first intermission. BU equalized 1:17 into the second on the power play, when a deflection off a shot from junior forward Sydney Healey left BC goalie Grace Campbell out to dry. BC responded exactly a minute later, capitalizing on another uncharacteristic mistake from BU, but the Terriers came right back, knotting the game at 2-2 a minute and a half later on a snipe from graduate assistant captain Julia Shaunessy from the top of the slot.
BU peppered 25 shots on Campbell’s net in the second and third periods. Shanahan faced 14.
“We played a good hockey game against a good team,” Watchorn said.
There have been plenty of buzzwords during this magical start to the season, but one of the most pressing has been “debrief,” specifically, BU’s ability to do it in the middle of games. The Terriers weren’t themselves for most of the first period. Then, somehow, they found a different gear, perhaps best exemplified by the unscientific observation that BU actually started skating faster.
It was an end-to-end game — which Watchorn said postgame isn’t BU’s preferred style of play — but the Terriers had no issues keeping up.
“Definitely, we did pretty well with it tonight, I think we were pretty threatening off the rush,” Watchorn said.
She said she would’ve liked to see BU bury more of those chances, and there were a lot of them, including in the first minute of overtime, when junior forwards Luisa and Lilli Welcke botched a 2-on-1 that would’ve ended the game. The Terriers did win the special teams battle, going 1 of 4 on the skater-advantage while blanketing BC, but BU wasn’t as dangerous on the power play as it would’ve liked.
“Some of the looks were good,” Watchorn said. “We’ll have some good film to watch at this point, and hopefully we can make some good tweaks tomorrow.”
Goal scoring remains an area the Terriers (3 per game) need to improve, but the chances were there.
The line changes were mostly there, too, another consistent point of emphasis for Watchorn that was magnified in such an important game. She said there were moments in which BU lost some of the discipline it had worked hard to gain in that area, but the Terriers, debriefing as always, nipped it in the bud.
“They caught themselves,” Watchorn said. “On a media timeout, funnily enough.”
If you ask her, that’s BU’s identity — it’s ability to manage itself. Watchorn has talked about it all year. She’s consistently cited it as the main reason a program coming off four consecutive losing seasons is off to such a blistering start. Any worry the Terriers would wilt in such a big game (in front of 2,886 people), or that their early conference lead was simply a product of beating up on bad teams, didn’t materialize on Friday.
BU was completely fine.
It lost, which hurt. Its last defeat was over a month prior against another cross-town rival, which felt far more deflating in the moment than this one did. Even so, BU responded the next day, crushing Northeastern, 4-0, and never looking back.
Saturday’s series finale against the Eagles is set for 4:30 p.m. at Conte Forum.
“Let it suck for the next few minutes, and we’ll regroup,” Watchorn said. “It’s never a bad thing to feel the loss. It’s never fun, especially when you’re a good team, and arguably should’ve won that game. But let it sting for a minute, regroup, and focus on how we’re going to rebound tomorrow.”
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