Gophers hockey veteran Mason Nevers, back from concussion, hits stride at right time

Bob Motzko noticed Mason Nevers being interviewed in a hallway near the Gophers locker room at 3M Arena at Mariucci this week and couldn’t help but reiterate what he told a group of reporters a few minutes earlier.

“He’s back,” the Gophers men’s hockey coach said, patting the senior forward on the back as he passed by.

Motzko’s exuberance isn’t misplaced. On a team that’s on a 9-1-1 roll entering a weekend series at Notre Dame, the re-emergence of Nevers as a scoring threat has made a balanced team even deeper. A concussion suffered Oct. 8 shelved Nevers for the first four games of the season and limited his effectiveness once he returned.

Throw in an ankle injury, and the player who helped the Gophers reach the NCAA championship game last year was having a rough start to the season.

“I’ve honestly been a guy who’s never had to really deal with injury, and this year is kind of the first I’ve had to deal with stuff and learn how to work around it,” said Nevers, who didn’t score his first goal until Jan. 13 against Robert Morris.

Nevers worked through nausea early in the recovery and felt headaches and fatigue during conditioning. The December break came at a perfect time for him.

“It was crazy that what he went through on his injury,” Motzko said, “and I can tell you as his coach, for a long stretch, that wasn’t the Mason Nevers we knew.”

Nevers’ game began to round into shape in January. He ended a six-game pointless streak with the goal against Robert Morris and followed that by scoring a goal and having another overturned by replay review against Big Ten leader Michigan State. A week later against second-place Wisconsin, he had the would-be winning goal waved off by a questionable call, leading to a Badgers shootout win.

Against Penn State in last weekend’s series finale, Nevers stole the puck at center ice, lost it while stickhandling through a couple of opponents and regained the puck just in time to beat Nittany Lions goalie Liam Souliere for a 3-0 lead.

“It just took a little longer than I anticipated, but at this point it’s helped me,” the Edina native said of his recovery period. “I feel really good with where our team is at and where I’m at.”

Gophers goalie Justen Close appreciates what Nevers does even when he’s not filling the stat sheet.

“He’s a guy who can play great and impact the game in so many ways without scoring,” Close said. “Just his defensive presence, how smart he is on the ice, the little passes he can make for other players. When he scores, it’s a bonus.”

A resurgent Nevers is important for the Gophers’ veteran line that also features fifth-year seniors in center Jaxon Nelson and right winger Bryce Brodzinski. Over the past six games, Nevers and Brodzinski have three points each, while Nelson has one. The trio has shown it can come up big in big situations, as evidenced by its eight goals and seven assists in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments last year.

“Obviously, there still are things we feel like we can work on every year,” Nevers said. “There’s new strengths and weaknesses, and we’re just trying to gel our line within how this team plays.”

All season long, the prize sitting there for motivation is the NCAA Frozen Four in St. Paul. That’s still off in the distance with two series over the next three weeks to finish the regular season, then the three weekends of Big Ten tournament play. Nevers doesn’t see his team looking ahead too far.

“Playoffs is that time you work for all year and especially with how last year ended, it always has been in the back of our minds, and we want to get as far as we can,” Nevers said. “But at the same time, you’ve got to take it week by week.”