Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread 2015-16
Thought I would throw this into the MN thread, although you may not be interested.
I was in New Prague, MN on Saturday, visiting with a friend, and we attended the Luverne - New Prague HS hockey game. Hadn't seen the Nelson kid in person before.
The first thing that surprised me was his size. We stood down behind the nets. The kid is big, especially for a sophomore.
He scored a hat trick. The first goal was pretty nice, driving down the right wing, got around the defenseman and snapped off a decent low shot to beat the goalie on the far side.
His second goal was a power play goal in which he retrieved the puck deep in his own end, then just casually skated up the left side and was allowed basically skate around the entire NP penalty killers for a close in wrist shot. Our first reaction was that facing even better high school competition, that goal doesn't happen.
His third goal was a simple tap in to a wide open net after a real nice play by another Luverne player to get the goalie out of position.
Even with the hat trick, though, Nelson may have been no better than even, or even minus 1 for a +/- on the afternoon. That will happen in a 9-8 OT game (won by NP) when a player plays probably half the game.
Both my friend and I came away with the impression that he was probably the best player on the ice that afternoon, but it wasn't like he stood out as a man among boys.
But, he certainly has great size. His speed seemed ok, maybe even deceptive. Pretty big stride that took a couple of NP players by surprise. The few slap shots he took seemed decent. Looks like he has some raw tools, but my impression is that he would benefit greatly by playing with and against a higher caliber group of players.
