Sydney Healey hadn’t tried a one-timer in forever.
Because she couldn’t. Healey got surgery on her wrist over the summer, and regaining the confidence in her body to blast pucks directly off the pass had proven quite a process. But the senior was slowly reworking it back into her game headed into BU’s series with Merrimack.
Then Maeve Carey provided her with the perfect set up in the third period on Saturday. And Neely Nicholson had a great screen in front of Merrimack goalie Adreanna Doucette.
Healey was priced in.
Alright! Healey recalled thinking. Here we go.
It went pretty well, as it usually does when BU’s assistant captain is taking a shot on goal. From above the left circle, Healey sent a puck blistering into the right corner of Merrimack’s net. Goalie Adreanna Doucette didn’t even move. Pretty good, for a player who could only laugh when asked if that was the first one-timer she’s attempted this season.
“First one that worked,” said Healey.
In another imperfect BU performance at Walter Brown Arena, Healey was again the difference, her two goals powering the Terriers to a 3-1 win and series sweep of the lowly Warriors. As the rest of Tara Watchorn’s team has rode the roller coaster this season, Healey has been as consistent and reliable as the third-year coach could ask for. Healey’s 15 goals and 24 points both lead the team by a mile, and both mark individual career highs, even though Healey’s senior year still has six games left. She led the team in goals and points last season, too, and her 15th and final tally in 2024-25 was only, you know, the overtime winner in the Hockey East final.
That Healey had scored 13 goals this season without access to a one-timer makes all of this even more impressive. Forget being, quite clearly, the Terriers’ best skater. She’s one of the best in all of Hockey East.
“She’s one of those players that, when she gets the puck, it’s going in more than not,” linemate Kaileigh Quigg told the Blog a few weeks ago.
Healey’s game-sealing tally was another step forward for BU’s slowly improving power play, which is still third-worst in the nation at 8.2 percent but has four goals over the last seven games. BU talked after the 3-0 win on Friday about its players being closer together on the power play, so Healey trailed closely behind Carey as BU’s captain wheeled around the circle before dumping it back for the one-timer. Watchorn normally preaches against shots from as far out as above the circle… unless there’s an effective screen in front of the goal and/or a player positioned for a juicy rebound. Nicholson stood directly in front of Doucette, who was cheating far to the left. The lane to the right side of her net was gaping.
“I had the open lane,” Healey said. “So I took it.”
Healey scored BU’s first on Saturday, too — a wraparound goal after she retrieved the rebound on a shot Doucette saved. The Terriers were actually outshot by the Warriors, 28-24, and junior goalie Mari Pietersen was forced to stand on her head on multiple occasions. This was not the controlling performance against a team with a 2-16-1 conference record that Watchorn would’ve hoped for — nor was it on Friday — but the Terriers were clinical when they got their chances and the Warriors were not.
You expect that from Healey. Not necessarily from Lexie Bertelsen, who scored the game-winner in the second period on a breakaway against Doucette. The freshman went to a three-part move, initially feigning a straight-up wrister before quickly transitioning to her backhand, as if she was trying to glide past Doucette to the right. The Warriors’ netminder took the bait, and Bertelsen immediately went back to her forehand, calmly lifting the puck into the left side of an open net.
“I knew she was going for the fake,” Healey said. “That’s her bread and butter in practice.”
“But she did it at high speed,” Watchorn added. “So kudos to her.”
So much of Bertelsen’s impact this season has come on the forecheck, where the 5-foot-2 right winger and the rest of BU’s “energy line” have dominated. Senior Riley Walsh, junior Greta Henderson and Bertelsen are all pests — but especially Bertelsen, who relentlessly hunts turnovers in the offensive zone. Watchorn knew the Terriers would get that during Bertelsen’s freshman year, but the rest of it?
“The way she sets people up, and her confidence and ability to finish,” Watchorn said, “she’s producing at a higher rate, making more skill plays than we even thought.”
With Healey and eight more contributors — including Luisa and Lilli Welcke, whom the “energy line” is replacing in BU’s top six during the Olympics — set to graduate after 2025-26, Bertelsen is the program’s future. She’s only got three goals and five assists, but Healey only had five and seven as a freshman all those years ago.
And she turned out pretty good.
“The sky’s the limit,” Watchorn said of Bertelsen.
Healey, sitting beside her, nodded in agreement.
