Even though he made a valiant effort to skate back and nearly deflect Sam Lipkin’s entry pass to Quinnipiac’s Jacob Quillan, somewhere inside Jaxon Nelson he knows he was out of position in the first ten seconds of overtime of the 2023 national championship. And it seems upon entering this 2024 postseason, he is seeking to remedy that.
2 goals and 8 blocks that was just yesterday. In the last five games, Nelson has totaled 8 goals and 2 assists culminating in 10 points. With the massive disappearance of Jimmy Snuggerud since Jan. 17 (only 2 goals scored) Nelson has filled the hole nicely.
“Was just playing the right way,” said Nelson on his game Saturday, in which Snuggerud was ejected with an early game misconduct. “Good things happen when you put pucks to the net and I’ve just found myself in the right times I guess.”
This has been a definitive breakout moment for the graduate senior as Nelson has always been a constant force high up in the Gopher hockey lines for his upperclassmen experience but has never been looked upon as “the guy” to save the day offensively or defensively. In a time where, outside of points leader Rhett Pitlick, every Gopher hockey forward has been pretty homogenous in scoring, Nelson has been a breath of fresh air.
“Nelly is another one of those guys where he competes so hard every game,” said Gophers goalie Justen Close. “His leadership and intangibles are things you can’t replace…everyone in that locker room is so happy to see him put the puck through the net because nobody earns and deserves it more than he does.”
For Close, I asked Motzko about his performance tonight. I later learned that it was 6 goals past his previous single-game save record on Dec. 3 2022 in East Lansing v. Michigan State (From 40 to 46). “I think it is the same we’ve seen out of him since he’s been playing goalie,” said the Gophers’ head honcho who probably didn’t realize it either. Penn State attempted 92 total shots completely peppering the Canadian netminder from Kindersley, Saskatchewan.
“You don’t really have time to break focus when the next shot is coming so soon so luckily I was able to get into a rhythm.”
Trying to stay as consistent as in the past Justen Close has waivered a tad this season with his goals-against-average creeping up from 2.02 in 2022-23 to 2.33 in 2023-24. If you’ve watched anything this season it hasn’t necessarily been himself losing a step and more so from increased porous defensive zone playmaking by his teammates.
Those consistent defensive setbacks were fortunately missing from the first game against Penn State. Defenseman Carl Fish on Friday night said it was “pretty incredible” how they limited this team to one shot-on-goal in the second period. Compared to the next day where the Gophers allowed 48 total shots on goal to a quicker Nittany Lion pride, yes that was certainly a great feat accomplished on Friday night. A definitive tale of two games with a resounding 5-1 Golden Gopher victory in game 1 and a complete 3-2 narrow escape in the second game on Saturday afternoon.
“When we were fighting it like we were…,” Motzko continued, alluding to the second half of the game,”…I’ve lived it and just shut my mouth and sit there. Thank god Justen Close did what he did and the one shot we got came through.”
That one shot came courtesy of a rare third period odd-man rush by Brody Lamb which resulted in an Aaron Huglen rebound. That was one of only four shots Minnesota fired at Penn State’s netminder the entire third period.
With Wisconsin gaining a win 4-2 against last-place Ohio State, which is a team they strangely have had massive troubles against, they will play on Sunday to decide where Minnesota will play next weekend. With a Badger victory, the Gophers will travel to Madison. With a loss, they will host Michigan at Mariucci Arena.
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