Hodag hockey drops opener to Shawano

The Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team faded late in the third period last Tuesday and lost to Shawano/Bonduel 5-1 in the season opener in Shawano.

Trailing 2-1 midway through the third period, the Hodags gave up two power play goals and a short-handed tally over the final 8 minutes, 19 seconds of the contest to fall to the Hawks.

“We were hanging in there. We did take some untimely penalties tonight,” Hodag head coach M.J. Laggis said. “That didn’t help us at all, but we also had a couple of extended power plays early in the game and were just unable to do anything with them — throwing pucks around and not catching pucks.”

After a scoreless opening period, the Hawks wasted little time getting on the board in the second as Gavin Hundt scored on a point-blank chance just 53 seconds into the stanza. Shawano dominated Rhinelander in the second, outshooting the Hodags 14-3 in the period. The Hawks’ second goal came at the 9:42 mark of the period on a shot by defenseman Max Huntington from the left point that trickled in after goalie Asher Rivord appeared to block it with his shoulder. 

The Hodags got within a goal 5:43 into the third period as sophomore Drake Nelson tipped in a shot from the blue line by sophomore defenseman Gabe Kennedy. 

“Drake went to the net hard and it was nice. We’re going to have to really try to manufacture goals,” Laggis said.

The Hodags could not sustain the momentum, however. Just 10 seconds after top returning defenseman Zach Edyvean was taken to the box on a head contact penalty, Shawano extended the lead as Hundt wrapped around the goal and counted a streaking Blake Swedberg for a point-play finish on the power play.

Jeremy Helmuth converted a 1-on-2 chance along the near boards short-handed for the Hawks with 5:46 remaining and Cameron Schroeder finished the scoring on the power play with 1:33 remaining off of Hundt’s second assist of the night. 

Shawano outshot Rhinelander 26-23 in the contest. Laggis said the Hodags are a work in progress with a young squad, as evidenced by opening night. 

“We had a lot of trouble catching passes and got off to a rough start. We had a number of kids we expected to be ready to go and, for one reason or another, they weren’t able to play right away,” he said. “We’ve got to work on every single aspect, from packing our bag leaving the rink to how we’re going to warmup from there. We’ve got to get mentally ready to play. We’ve got a lot to work on.”

Sophomore Asher Rivord made 21 saves in the loss for Rhinelander in his first start as Rhinelander’s primary goaltender. He made a handful of appearances behind Tyler Kimmerling last year, going 2-1-0 with a 3.75 goals against average and a .839 save percentage.

“Asher Rivord did a nice job, especially earlier in the game, holding us in there and making a lot of nice saves,” Laggis noted. “We’ve got to play better D in front of him. We’ve worked a ton on it but we’ve got to get a lot better for sure.”

The Hodags (0-1-0) are home tonight to take on Chequamegon/Phillips in non-conference play before opening the Great Northern Conference schedule at Antigo on Thursday. 

“Chequamegon is a team we scrimmaged a lot in the spring and we had tight games with them,” Laggis said. “For us to compete, the keys for us will be staying out of the penalty box. Another big thing is we know our systems but them we get pressure on us and we fall apart. We’ve got to get more system-sure under pressure and we’ve got to get more pucks to the net.” 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].