Exactly two minutes later, New Ulm’s Brody Nordby responded, as tic-tack-toe passes from Carson Uecker and Carsten Haala set him up for a goal to give the Eagles the lead once more.

“It felt awesome,” Norby said. “It just propelled our whole team and our whole line, the goalie. Just the whole team to get going and get the win.”

From that point on, New Ulm’s offense was set loose, scoring two more goals — one by Bodey Hagberg and one by Hunter Larson — to win 5-2 over the Packers.

“We were working the puck low to high to the D,” Nordby said. “Then just moving the puck around and shooting when we had chances. Not passing up any shots.”

Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Carson Uecker scores a goal on Austin goaltender Tait Johnson during a nonconference boys hockey game at the New Ulm Civic Center on Tuesday.

Larson had two goals and an assist on the day, while Uecker had a goal and an assist. Nordby had one goal, while Haala, Jaxon Saenz and Josh Forstner each had an assist. New Ulm goaltender Colton Anderson had 23 saves.

“It’s a credit to the guys,” New Ulm head coach Ryan Neuman said. “In that third period, when they tied it up, it could have gone one of two ways there when we gave up that power-play goal to give up the lead. Our guys battled back right away. We scored a couple tic-tac-toe goals as well, just good plays that the boys made, credit to them.

“But they’re buying in to the systems and when we get rolling, we’re good … It’s just they have to get the confidence. That’s part of the youth of the team and building them up and getting ready for a playoff run.”

New Ulm put up an increasing number of shots on goal in each period, starting with 12 in the first before putting 14 on net in the second and finishing the third with 15 shots on goal.

“We just kind of built the whole game,” Neuman said. “Each period we got better. Just confidence and getting the guy to buy in, control the puck, find lanes and get the puck to the net. Respect to the Austin goaltender [Tait Johnson] and how good he is. We couldn’t pass up shots and we had to take advantage of that and get as many shots as possible on him.”

The Eagles opened the scoring in the first period as Larson cleaned up a mess in front of the goal, assisted by Forstner, at 5:04. Austin responded as Flanders capitalized on a 2-on-1 situation at 7:49 of the first, but Uecker put New Ulm back in front as he took a pass from Haala and avoided both the Austin defense and Johnson for a goal in the bottom left corner of the net. A scoreless second period saw each team kill off a penalty, but Flanders was able to punish another New Ulm penalty in the second for his game-tying shot. Nordby responded with his goal, and Hagberg took a pass from Saenz and shot it through the 5-hole for a 4-2 lead at 11:36. Austin called a timeout with 1:50 to play to pull the goalie, but Larson got an empty-netter 28 seconds later, assisted by Forstner, to seal the victory.

New Ulm (13-10) has just two regular season games left as it travels to Luverne on Thursday, then hosts St. Paul Highland Park/Central on Saturday.

“We’re going to Luverne on Thursday, and that’s a big game for us there,” Neuman said. “That’s a top team in the section. If we can go into Luverne there and steal a win and continue to build some momentum into the playoffs, we’ve been telling the guys, ‘Once you get there, anything can happen.’ It’s three games, if you’re hot, you’re hot, and once you get to Gustavus, not all teams are used to it, and weird things have happened there in the past. We just have to give ourselves a chance and get there and go with it from there. We’ll continue to build and be ready for the playoffs.”