December 20, 2017 at 1:36 p.m.
Lakeland's Benson scores four to defeat Hodags 5-1
Lakeland's Benson scores four to defeat Hodags 5-1
T-Bird sophomore Bret Benson scored three goals in a 1 minute, 40 second stretch early in the third, and tacked on one more later in the period, as Lakeland stunned the Hodags 5-1 at the Lakeland Ice Arena.
It was Rhinelander's second straight loss after a seven-game winning streak to start the season. Benson scored on the power play 2:27 into the third and it was on from there. He scored another rebound goal 23 seconds later and a third goal on a breakaway at the 4:07 mark to knock off a Hodag team that held the T-Birds without a shot on goal in the second period.
Hodag coach M.J. Laggis did not mince words following the contest.
"Just a colossal meltdown," he said. "We took a tripping penalty and they scored to make it 2-1. Just that fast we just abandoned everything we were doing. Trust me, we had a game plan to keep (Benson) and (line mate Max Toijala) in front of us and we did that for two periods, but we just absolutely fell apart, took just some awful, embarrassing penalties."
Penalties were an issue all night as the teams combined for 16 penalties and 40 penalty minutes. The play became more chippy as the third period progressed. Lakeland goalie Nathan Pitek took a roughing penalty for a scrum in front of his net midway through the period. Rhinelander defenseman Matthias Schneider took two minors and a 10-minute misconduct penalty during a fracas in which he held Toijala and then drove him to the ice. Schneider, in frustration, slammed his stick against the wall as he made his way to the locker room following the misconduct penalty.
Laggis said he considered the team lucky that Schneider's penalties were not more severe.
"How we got out of here without a game DQ surprises me," he said. "I'm just embarrassed with some of the things that happened there and they absolutely will not happen again. I can't believe we didn't get a game DQ with one of those bad penalties and then the broken stick behind our bench and so on. That's not the way that we play hockey. I'd like to think that my teams are trademarked for playing clean and playing hard and blocking shots and trying to do the little things right. That was just ridiculous. We're worried about the wrong things in the locker room. We got to start putting the team back into it."
Tyler Carroll scored on the power play to give Lakeland the lead at the 11:26 mark of the first period. The Hodags answered with a power play score of their own by Hunter Hicks 7:05 into the second to tie the game.
Rhinelander outshot Lakeland 11-0 in the second as Lakeland committed four penalties for eight minutes in the period.
"I thought we played a really good second period," Laggis said. "We were down by a goal and we talked it over in the locker room and did exactly what we talked about and had a lot of momentum leaving the period."
Rhinelander outshot Lakeland 28-17 in the contest.
The Hodags were still without forward Cole Spaulding and defenseman Danny Zuiker, both of whom are nursing shoulder injuries.
Rhinelander tried to move Abe Laggis and Brandon Kolasa back to defense at times during the contest.
The road doesn't get any easier for the Hodags, who travel to Northland Pines tonight. The Eagles are the only remaining undefeated team in Great Northern Conference play, thanks to a 3-2 win at Antigo Tuesday and the Hodags' loss at Lakeland.
"All you can do is try to put the pieces back together, have a practice tomorrow," coach Laggis said. "Obviously, we've got to have a talk about how we react when the pressure and things go bad. We saw tonight how we react when things go bad. All the way up the ice - from our forwards to our defensemen to our goaltending - we absolutely got to handle pressure a lot better than that."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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