Jaxon Nelson gets shot at a ton more ice time with Iowa Heartlanders

CORALVILLE - Players want to play. Doesn’t matter what sport.

Jaxon Nelson didn’t really get a chance to do that a lot last season when he was with the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League.

The first-year Iowa Heartlanders forward was a third and fourth-line guy for the top minor league team of the NHL’s Boston Bruins. If not a scratch.

Nelson played in just 35 games in the 2024-25 season, scoring just a pair of goals. He matched that Sunday afternoon at Xtream Arena, scoring twice on the power play in Iowa’s 5-4 loss to the Tulsa Oilers.

“It’ll be a great opportunity to play (a lot), play the same minutes I was playing in college,” Nelson said. “I think that will be a lot of fun to take that all in.”

A former captain at the University of Minnesota, the 25-year-old native of tiny Magolia, Minn., a town of 200 in the very southwest corner of the state, signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Boston Bruins after his senior season with the Gophers in the spring of 2024.

The Bruins did not extend him a qualifying offer after last season, making him a free agent. No NHL or AHL team bit.

The Heartlanders were a perfect fit, promising him mega minutes of ice time and in key spots. It also helped that Nelson’s former Minnesota teammates Jonny Sorenson and Mike Koster already were in the Corridor.

The trio have separate apartments across the hall from each other here.

“Just like the dorm rooms in college,” Nelson said. “It’s a lot of fun. It honestly doesn’t feel real. It feels like we’re at some camp or something. It’ll be a lot of fun to be with them all year and create more memories.”

Nelson also had an assist in the game and has two goals and four helpers in Iowa’s first three games. Those games included a one-goal regulation win Friday night against Tulsa and a shootout win Saturday night at Bloomington.

“Jaxon has had elite offense in the past,” said Heartlanders Coach Chuck Weber. “He kind of was forced to be a bottom-six guy the last couple of years. I want him to get back to what he was at Minnesota.”

Tulsa got a goal on a penalty shot just 19 seconds into Sunday’s game, then scored an even-strength goal a minute later for a very quick 2-0 lead. The Oilers got another goal midway through the second period, but the Heartlanders continued to push.

Nelson’s two goals made it a 3-2 game. It was 4-3 Tulsa in the third, with Iowa having two power-play cracks to tie things.

Never quite happened.

“One of the things we said was start the game on time, and we didn’t,” Iowa Coach Chuck Weber said. “The first eight minutes, we weren’t good.

“The ECHL is tough. We played three games in two and a half days. But I tell you what, our guys competed until the bitter end. I couldn’t be more proud of the resilience of this group. We came up short tonight, but if we can learn from that, I think we’re going to have more wins than losses.”

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