From an arena packed with 10,000-plus, where five NCAA title banners hang from the rafters, playing games in the largest city in the State of Hockey, Bob Motzko and his recruiters don’t need to spend an extraordinary level of time and effort selling their Minnesota men’s hockey program to potential future Gophers from around the state and, increasingly, around North America.

But for Motzko, and the Gophers coaches who came before him, the abundance of talent that wants to wear maroon and gold in the Big Ten on Friday and Saturday nights comes with its own special challenge.

Most of today’s Gophers, whether they’re currently on the first or fourth line, were at one point in high school or junior hockey or both, the star of the show. When a player who was the offensive center of attention on his prep team comes to Minneapolis and is asked to play a third line defensive role, it can be a challenging adjustment, both in terms of skills and ego.

Now in his seventh season running the Gophers program, Motzko has attracted some certified superstar players to 3M Arena at Mariucci, a half-dozen of which are now earning healthy NHL paychecks. But he has also acknowledged that when the calendar flips to February, March and April, and open ice gets harder and harder to find, some talented players’ natural inclination to try and play the hero can mean trouble, especially in tight games.

Case in point was their most recent outing, versus arch-rival Wisconsin with the biggest home audience in program history on hand.

The Badgers had Minnesota scoreless and potentially frustrated with less than a dozen minutes to play. It would have been easy for NHL first-rounders like Jimmy Snuggerud or Matthew Wood or Oliver Moore or Sam Rinzel to take the game into their own hands. But that’s not often a winning plan.

“That’s part of our DNA is, it’s 0-0, we think we’ve got to go do something. No, we’ve got to go play hockey, and play it the right way,” Motzko said, after his team refused to panic, refused to take extraordinary measures, and was eventually rewarded with a win.

In the happy and relieved postgame gathering with media, Motzko and the players who spoke stressed that lowering your heart rate and your panic point is a hallmark of late-season hockey, for teams learning how to win the “rock fights” that so often constitute the style of play when conference standings and NCAA playoff positions are on the line.

“The message was to just stick with it,” said Moore, who scored late in the third versus Wisconsin. “If we can continue to play that good defensive style, we’re going to get chances offensively from it. So just sticking with it. Nothing too tactical. Just go play our game.”

It doesn’t take an overly deep dive into the memory banks for Gophers fans to conjure a painful flashback to a time when a more talented Minnesota team was outdone by getting lured into playing another team’s game, and the result is still hard to fathom, 22 months later.

The 2022-23 Gophers had more individual talent than perhaps any roster that has gathered in Minneapolis, and spent much of the season atop the national rankings. They blasted their way to the Big Ten title, cruised through the Fargo Regional and on to the Frozen Four in Tampa, Fla., where Boston University was little match for Minnesota in the national semifinal.

In the 2023 national title clash, Minnesota built a 2-0 second period lead on a Quinnipiac team known for smothering defense.

Then the Bobcats began to chip away at the Gophers’ advantage over the final 30 minutes of regulation, taking Minnesota out of what it did best, and prompting some of the team’s offensive stars to try to make big plays — taking the puck into the teeth of the Quinnipiac defense again and again, with nothing but turnovers to show for their efforts.

The Bobcats got a goal in the second period. Late in the third, just after Minnesota killed a penalty, Quinnipiac tied the game, and took momentum into the overtime.

The Bobcats drew up a play to start the extra session, and scored in just 10 seconds, leaving Minnesota fans stunned and many players sobbing before their flight home with a big silver trophy.

Connor Kurth was a lightly-used freshman on that team, and he has those bad memories and hard lessons of what not to do in tight games burned into his psyche.

“I think it’s just our experience with these kinds of games. Earlier in the year I think we’d get frustrated and kind of lose ourselves and lose our game, and start worrying about scoring,” said Kurth, whose patience was rewarded with a pair of goals in the final 10 minutes versus Wisconsin on Saturday. “I think now we’re understanding that playoff hockey’s gonna be tight, we’ve got to start playing that way.”

Motzko noted on Saturday that it was Feb. 1. He hates January, and loves the months that come after it, which routinely produce the season’s best hockey. And through hard lessons learned in Florida and elsewhere, he’s reinforcing with his talented roster that they don’t need heroes, they need a team.

“There’s something about the clock that starts turning toward playoff time, and your game has to evolve with it,” Motzko said. “Let’s hope that this is a great indication that that’s where our game’s evolving.”