Comeback bids not enough for Hodags against Waupaca, Oshkosh

The Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team responded with fight following back-to-back blowout losses to Northland Pines and Tomahawk — two of the top teams in the Northwoods.

It didn’t necessarily show in the final score, but the Hodags made things interesting against Oshkosh and Waupaca, falling 5-1 to the Ice Hawks Saturday, Dec. 6 in Oshkosh, followed by a 7-3 loss to Waupaca in Great Northern Conference play Tuesday night at the Rhinelander Ice Arena.

The common denominator in both games was that the Hodags (0-5-0, 0-3-0-0 Great Northern) made things interesting going into the third period of both contests. The Hodags trailed 3-1 after two periods at Oshkosh after scoring late in the second period and responded from a 4-0 deficit to get within 4-3 a minute into the third period Tuesday against the Comets. 

“I think this group is starting to maybe turn the corner a little bit and get what it takes to compete,” coach M.J. Laggis said following Tuesday night’s loss. “So we just have to build from here. There’s nothing else we can do. I’m really proud of their effort. I really am.” 

Waupaca 7, Rhinelander 3

    Rhinelander’s Kadin Rodziczak fires a shot past Waupaca’s Parker Saunders during the third period of a GNC boys’ hockey game at the Rhinelander Ice Arena Tuesday, Dec. 9. Rodziczak scored on a rebound following the shot to cut Waupaca’s lead to 4-3. The Comets went on to win, 7-3. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

The Hodags matched their power play output from all of last season during a five-minute flurry on Tuesday that turned a blowout into a nail biter.

Rhinelander scored three unanswered goals, all with the man advantage, to trim Waupaca’s lead to 4-3. The Hodags briefly though they had the game tied, but their equalizing goal was disallowed and Waupaca answered with the final three goals to pull away for win. 

“That locker room was hungry,” Laggis said. “They wanted to win, they were battling hard, they were pulling together. At the end of the game, you walk in (the locker room), and instead of them acting like they didn’t care, they were bummed out. You know, they wanted to win. They knew they had chances.”

Rhinelander’s rally started after Waupaca’s top returning scorer from last season, Nate Hines, was taken to the box on a misconduct penalty. The Hodags answered off the ensuing faceoff that Drake Nelson won and fed to Carsen Zadnik, who slid it to Carson Plehn on the back door for the sophomore’s first goal of the season. Less than a minute later, Finn McGuire was called with a major penalty for head contact and the Hodags were quick to answer on the power play again. This time, Braydon Lorman was open in the slot for a pass in the corner from Ryan Carey. Lorman, a sophomore, buried his first career goal to make it 4-2 with 2:32 remaining in the second period. 

Still on the major power play to begin the third, the Hodags brought the deficit down to one when junior Kadin Rodziczak scored his first goal of the year, putting home a rebound of his own shot just a minute into the period. 

Rhinelander, which was 0 for 15 on the power play coming into Tuesday and was 3 for 59 last season, was 3 for 6 against the Comets.

“We had so much momentum when we finally scored a goal, and made a 4-1, and then 4-2,” Laggis said. “The locker room was different after the second period. And it was a ton of fire and we talked about what we were going to do and come out and score in the first two minutes. And we did that. That was awesome.”

Rhinelander thought it had tied it seconds after the major expired when Nelson poked the puck home in a scrum in front of the Waupaca net. However, the goal was disallowed as the officials deemed that Nelson kicked the puck into the goal with his skate. Though they cannot be used to assist or change a call, photographs of the play confirmed the ruling on the ice.  

Waupaca answered at the 3:25 mark of the third as defenseman Emmerich Trzebiatowski slipped a shot from the right point past Rhinelander freshman goalie Connor McGee, who looked to be screened on the play. Thomas Thiel added another goal for the Comets roughly a minute and a half later and Trzebiatowski scored once more at the 9:53 mark to restore Waupaca’s four-goal lead. 

Rhinelander got off to a sluggish start in Tuesday’s game. The Hodags were outshot 12-2 in the opening stanza and found themselves down 3-0. Colin Lockwood scored at the 6:03 mark, and again at the 11:51 mark to give the Comets the lead. Noah Fleming scored on a rebound at the 12:41 mark to make it 3-0. 

Fleming scored again 6:56 into the second as Waupaca led 4-0.

“I don’t love the way the game started, and I didn’t love the letdown after they scored that goal to make it 5-3. We had a little letdown again, but I love overall their energy and their effort and not quitting,” Laggis said. 

Waupaca outshot Rhinelander 37-28 in the game. McGee made 30 saves in defeat. 

Start time for Tuesday’s game was pushed ahead an hour and a half to 5:30 p.m. to allow Waupaca extra time to get home ahead of a storm system that dropped several inches of snow in central Wisconsin Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. 

Oshkosh 5, Rhinelander 1

Brennon Kraft had a hat trick and Dayton Briski added a goal and two assists as the Oshkosh co-op skated past the Hodags 5-1 in Oshkosh on Saturday. 

Shots were even at 27 apiece in the game and the Ice Hawks tacked on an empty-net goal with less than two minutes remaining as the Hodags made a desperation attempt to get back into the game. 

“We had a lot of really good scoring chances early in the game, and throughout the game. Several good, really good 1-on-0 looks where we missed the net or just failed to score. And they had some scoring chances they capitalized on,” Laggis said. “We certainly didn’t play great, but we certainly played good enough to make that a much tighter game.”

Goalie-turned-forward Asher Rivord netted his first career varsity goal for the Hodags late in the second period as he put home a rebound after a Dylan Shefveland steal at neutral ice gave the Hodags a 2-on-1 breakaway. It was Rivord’s second straight game with a point after recording an assist in a loss at Tomahawk Dec. 4. He extended his point streak to three games with a pair of assists Tuesday against Waupaca.

“Asher, he just forechecked, back checked, worked extremely hard up and down the ice,” Laggis said. “And it was a real working man’s goal that he scored right there. It was a puck on net that Dylan Shefveland helped get a puck on net, and he just went to the goalie extremely hard and pounded it through there. So that was awesome.”

That goal cut Oshkosh’s lead to 3-1 after two period but the Hodags’ chances at a comeback went away when Kraft gathered his own rebound in traffic and slid a shot past McGee with 11:45 remaining. He tacked on one more goal with 1:48 remaining after the Hodags pulled McGee for an extra attacker. 

Briski got Oshkosh on the board 6:21 into the contest as he beat McGee on a wraparound attempt. Defenseman Clay Poquette made it 2-0 as he fired a screened from the left point home with 43 seconds raining in the opening period. 

The first of Kraft’s three goals was a short-handed tally 9:31 into the second after the Ice Hawks won the puck along the boards in the Hodags’ zone and got the puck to the top of the crease. 

“We had runs today where we were playing really good in the D-zone and we managed to generate more offensive zone chances,” Laggis said. “And then we had runs where we just kind of let down and didn’t play well. So got to be more consistent overall.”

McGee made 22 saves in the loss for Rhinelander, which went 0 for 8 on the power play in the contest. 

Up next

The Hodags took on Chequamegon/Phillips in Park Falls Thursday in a game that concluded after press time for today’s edition. Visit RiverNewsOnline.com for a recap of that game and read a full report in the Tuesday, Dec. 16 edition of the River News.

Rhinelander jumps back into GNC play Dec. 16 at Antigo.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].