We study the existence of left invariant closed $G_2$-structures defining a Ricci soliton metric on simply connected nonabelian nilpotent Lie groups. For each one of these $G_2$-structures, we show long time existence and uniqueness of solution for
the Laplacian flow on the noncompact manifold. Moreover, considering the Laplacian flow on the associated Lie algebra as a bracket flow on $R^7$ in a similar way as in [23] we prove that the underlying metrics $g(t)$ of the solution converge smoothly, up to pull-back by time-dependent diffeomorphisms, to a flat metric, uniformly on compact sets in the nilpotent Lie group, as $t$ goes to infinity.
