Who is Lisa Jönsson, and why you should be paying attention to her — News around the hockey world
The IX: Hockey Friday with The Ice Garden, Jan. 31, 2025
Hey y’all! It’s Emma Sullivan from The Ice Garden with another installment of Hockey Friday to get your weekend started. This week, we’re looking at a goaltender near and dear to me, Northeastern freshman Lisa Jönsson. The netminder is making a name for herself, and if you’re not keeping an eye out for her … you really should be. Let’s get into why Jönsson is one to watch heading into the last month of the NCAA regular season.
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Who is Lisa Jönsson?
Lisa Jönsson, a 20-year-old freshman from Stockholm, Sweden, joined Northeastern’s program in the fall. Before coming to the NCAA, the 6’ netminder had experience playing in the SDHL with MoDo Hockey and with the Swedish national team in the U18 tournament back in 2022. While her 2023-24 season wasn’t too impressive (in 11 SDHL starts she had a .881 save percentage – though still a 9-2-0 record), since coming over to North America, she has been lights out.
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In Division I
As I just mentioned, Jönsson joined a Northeastern program this past fall, slotting in as the youngest (graduation class-wise) of the three netminders on the roster. She’d originally committed to the Huskies program a few years ago, and entered a program coming off seven straight years of outstanding goaltending from Aerin Frankel and Gwyneth Philips, who are both now playing in the PWHL and for USA Hockey.
To start the season, Jönsson wasn’t Northeastern’s primary starter. Instead, head coach Dave Flint opted to start Paige Taborski through the first five games, as the senior was the only one of the three goaltenders to have seen any D-I action before 2024-25 started. The freshman finally got her chance the second weekend in October, in a Saturday game against Boston University.
It certainly didn’t go Jönsson’s way. The netminder made 24 saves in a 4-0 loss (two of the goals came on an empty net in the last minutes of regulation) and dropped the first game of her NCAA career.
The 0-1 record didn’t last too long, as she returned to the Huskies net the following Saturday for her first start at Matthews Arena, this time against Holy Cross. Jönsson made 17 saves in a 4-2 win to earn her first victory in the NCAA.
Taborski would start the next three games for the Huskies, but to start November Jönsson was back in control of the starter’s position and hasn’t looked back since. Her first real test came against UConn, the team who beat Northeastern in the Hockey East title game last season, ending their six-year run as the No. 1 team in the conference. The Boston-based Huskies struggled against the ones from Connecticut last season, going 0-3-1 in the four games played in the regular and postseason.
Jönsson, in just her third and fourth starts in D-I, shut out the reigning conference champs on back-to-back days, making a combined 61 saves across the two wins. Talk about a statement.
Since that weekend in November, Jönsson has gone a combined 10-2-0, with the only losses coming to Boston College (who the Huskies then beat in the Beanpot semifinal earlier this month) and Providence. And the losses were not on her; Northeastern has often gone cold offensively at stretches this season, but it was Jönsson who kept the games as close as they were in those defeats.
All told, the rookie has given up three goals in a game just twice over her first 16 starts, and has made a combined 394 saves in 954 minutes played so far this season. Her .959 save percentage is the best in the country, as is her 1.07 goals against average and her seven shutouts, though she is tied in the last statistic.
On average, Jönsson shuts out the Huskies’ opponent 44% of the time, which has been crucial considering those scoring droughts I mentioned earlier. Flint called her the No. 1 for Northeastern moving forward following their weekend series against Providence on Jan. 17 and 18. And it’s easy to see why.
Her crowning moment so far this season came just last week on Jan. 21. Playing in front of a crowd of over 13,000 fans, Jönsson made 30 saves against No. 15 Boston University to lead Northeastern to its third-straight Beanpot title. For her efforts, not only did she win the Bertagna Award for the best goaltender of the tournament (continuing a run of four NU goalies in five tournaments to win the award), she was also honored with the Most Valuable Player award.
Again, as a freshman. And, as the first goalie to win the MVP since 2015, which was awarded to Emerence Maschmeyer of Harvard — another star of the PWHL (and Gwyneth Philips’ goalie partner).
Through it all, Jönsson has continued to compliment the team in front of her and remains humble in spite of her sustained success.
“It was unbelievable, I did not expect [the MVP] at all,” she said during the media availability following the Beanpot win. “I’m just so happy that we were able to pull this off and I was able to perform really well tonight. I’m really happy about it.”
Goaltender-U
The fun thing is that Northeastern is no stranger to incredible goaltending. I mentioned Frankel, and I mentioned Philips, the two most recent names on a long list of outstanding netminders. Florence Schelling, Kelly Dyer Hayes, Erika Silva, Chloe Desjardins, Brittany Bugalski, just to name a few. The Huskies are no strangers to great names in the position; there’s even a sign in Matthews Arena from their fans calling the university “Goaltender U”.
Flint knows how important the position is. A former goaltender himself, he’s the member of the coaching staff that spends the most time with the goalies. He sets the plan for them and has molded the recent generation of goaltenders at Northeastern into what they are today. He’s done it before, and now looking at Jönsson, it appears he’s doing it again.
“When I started coaching 29 years ago, a coach told me one time when you build a team he said ‘GAG – get a good goalie,’” Flint said after the Beanpot final. “That’s one thing I’ve always tried to pride myself on is when we try to recruit, we try to get the best goalies, and you can always build your team around that. And Lisa proved tonight that she’s one of the best goalies in the NCAA.”
And it’s not just the numbers or her height that make her a great goaltender. She’s aware of the puck at all times, diving across her crease to make saves when she has to, flashing her glove at least a dozen times a start, reading where the opposition is going to go before they do it and more.
She may not play the puck the same way Philips did, and she may have half a foot on Frankel which makes some of Jönsson’s saves at least look easier. But for a freshman goalie to come in and play this way already, it’s impressive and simply fun to watch. She doesn’t have as many minutes played as some of the other goalies in the NCAA in 2024-25 — which might turn voters in another direction for national awards — however she has the talent and the confidence that will carry her forward, and everyone should take notice of that.
“I just feel like once we get going, we are able to score a lot of goals,” Jönsson herself said at the Beanpot. “Unless [the opponent] score on me early, I’m not gonna let in any pucks.”
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