As soon as Nela Lopušanová touched the puck, she knew what she was going to do with it.
It was the quarterfinal of the U18 women’s world championship in Östersund, Sweden, and Lopušanová, a forward from Slovakia, was about to score the goal of the tournament.
She skated below the hash marks, picked the puck up on the blade of her stick in one smooth stride, and shoveled it — “lacrosse style” — into the far side post, popping Swedish netminder Felicia Frank’s bottle out of the net.
Frank looked stunned. The Swedish penalty killers in front of her didn’t seem to know what had just happened. At first, neither did the game’s broadcasters.
“Did we just see the Michigan?” asked former Canadian Olympian turned TSN analyst Cheryl Pounder. “Did that just happen?”
If the move appeared effortless, that’s because it was.
“It is a routine move for me,” Lopušanová told The Athletic through a translator from the Slovak national team. “It was easy to do.”
It was the goal that made her a viral sensation during the tournament held earlier this month: the first Michigan goal scored at a top-level IIHF women’s tournament.
And it was there, at Östersund Arena, that Lopušanová announced herself on the…
