February 1, 2017 at 4:20 p.m.
Hodag hockey hangs on for third straight win
Hodag hockey hangs on for third straight win
On Tuesday night at Rhinelander Ice Arena, the Hodags had a chance to earn back-to-back GNC wins as they hosted Tomahawk. It would be a chance for a third straight win, and fourth in five games after a stretch of six straight losses.
Rhinelander looked as if it was going to cruise to an easy win, jumping on the Hatchets early and scoring less than five minutes and eventually took a 4-0 lead.
Tomahawk bounced back to cut the lead to two goals on two different occasions in the third period, but the Hodags had an answer every time and held on for the 5-3 win.
"I don't think we really played particularly well tonight at all," Rhinelander head coach M.J. Laggis said. "But we got some shots on goal and got some pucks to fall, and we kind of took the ugly road to get the win."
One of the points that Laggis stressed prior to the season was that his team was going to need to bide some time until his inexperienced forwards found their footing and began to produce.
During the win streak it seems as if they are coming around. In the past three games, five different Hodags scored their first goal of the season, including two more against Tomahawk.
Hunter Hicks scored his first of the season just 4:51 into the game, while Ethan Pequet notched his first with 1:04 left in the first period to head into the intermission up 3-0.
"I think we're starting to understand what we're trying to do in the offensive zone better," Laggis said. "We have some good cycles. We're not necessarily finishing all the time, we're making some good second passes off the cycle, but we're getting more scoring out of kids, and that's really good to see. We're going to need it because we're playing some real good competition on Thursday and Saturday as well."
Not only is Rhinelander starting to get scoring from a variety of sources, but it got timely scoring in this game.
The Hodags dominated the first five minutes, outshooting Tomahawk 5-0 in the first five minutes leading up to Hicks' goal.
The Hatchets woke up, however, and outshot the Hodags 5-2, until Freddy Wisner made a beautiful move to get around a defender to find Bridger Flory for a goal with 2:27 left in the first. Pequet would score a little more than a minute later to steal all the momentum heading into the intermission.
In the third period, after Hunter Jones scored to cut the lead to 4-2, Dylan Roeser scored his second of the night just 39 seconds later to quell the comeback a touch.
"Getting that third goal was big at the end of the period," Laggis said. "In the second period we got one and we took some momentum into the third, but the tale of the scoresheet doesn't lie. They outshot us in the third and outscored us 3-1, so we clearly have a lot to work on in that aspect, but it was great to see us finish. We did hold on at the end and we played some solid hockey in the last few minutes. It was good to get a win."
Tomahawk started gain some momentum in the second period, winning the shot total 8-7, but the Hatchets truly picked it up in the third, outshooting Rhinelander 13-5.
The Hatchets began to increase the physicality and Laggis believes that his team struggled to adapt to it at times.
"They started hitting us and finishing their checks and when they did that, we just started coughing up the puck and did not react very well to that at all," Laggis said. "I haven't seen us do that this year, but I thought when they started getting physical and finishing their checks, we just didn't handle it very well and kind of went away."
Roeser was there to respond, however, as his third period goal sucked some of the momentum out of Tomahawk.
Even though the Hatchets scored again, it was a 5-3 margin rather than a 4-3 game.
"I thought Dylan Roeser was all over the ice tonight," Laggis said. "Not just that he scored two goals. He played a really aggressive game. You expect a senior and a leader like that to play that kind of game in that situation."
Cody Pratz made 23 saves between the pipes, while Hicks added an assist to go along with his goal for Rhinelander (6-10-0, 2-8 GNC).
The Hodags take the ice again on Thursday with a trip to Lakeland in a big rivalry game.
Due to having a game postponed for pertussis in December, this is the first of two games in five days against the Thunderbirds, who sit at 3-5-1 in GNC play.
Nick Sabato may be reached at [email protected] or via Twitter @SabatoNick.
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