Hodag hockey drops two more ahead of GNC tourney

The Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team had a tough go of it to end the Great Northern Conference regular season, suffering an 8-0 home loss to Lakeland on Thursday night, followed by a 5-0 loss at Mosinee on Friday night.

Back-to-back games against two of the top three teams in the GNC proved to be a challenge for the Hodags (2-16-0, 0-7-0-0 Great Northern) to close out the GNC round robin play.

Rhinelander finished as the eighth seed in the conference and will open the GNC tournament at Tomahawk on Tuesday.

Lakeland 8, Rhinelander 0

The T-Birds had Rhinelander’s number from the start, jumping on the Hodags for five opening-period goals in a rout Thursday at the Rhinelander Ice Arena. 

Lawson Bain scored four times for Lakeland while Brent Olson and CJ Smith both tallied four assists.

Lakeland threw 20 shots at goalie Asher Rivord in the first period, the last of which found its way home with less than 11 seconds to go in the opening period, as the Thunderbirds opened a big lead.

“We really struggled early in the game of making plays with the puck,” Hodag coach M.J. Laggis said. “I’ll tell you one thing that has been a huge focus of ours is not banging pucks up the boards, giving them away in the D zone. Whenever we get pressure, our go-to is just to throw it up the rail and throw it up the boards, and give it away and then it comes right back at us again and again. 

“Compounding that problem is that our coverage in front of the net was not there and we didn’t take care of guys. You want to play inside-out in front of that net, move guys out and keep that lane open for your goalie, and we just we didn’t do that at all. They disarmed us.”

Lakeland added to its lead with two goals 37 seconds apart in the second period. Cooper Johnson beat Rivord on a wraparound attempt on the power play at 9:46 in the second and Noah Dube banged home a one-timer from point-blank range at the 10:23 mark. Bain scored his fourth goal of the night short-handed 6:34 into the third period, cashing in as the Hodag defense misplayed the puck behind its own net. 

On the other side, the Hodags generated only 16 shots on goal against a stingy Lakeland defense. 

“They are good defensive team. They don’t give up much and they work really, really hard. That’s one thing about them that I’m I always impressed with,” Laggis said.

Mosinee 5, Rhinelander 0

Friday night’s game at Mosinee got off to a rough start for Rhinelander. Four goals in the first period ultimately proved to be the difference in the contest, but the Hodags played better over the final two periods to give the team a little bit of confidence coming out of a tough stretch of games. 

“I thought we, as a group, did a really good job of coming out and playing really hard and keeping our composure,” Laggis said. “It could’ve turned into a 10, 11-nothing (game) real easy and instead we battened down the hatches, so we’re happy about that.”

Mosinee scored three times in the first 3:23 of the contest to take control. Elliot Yirkovsky scored twice and Tyler Baars added a goal as Mosinee raced to a 3-0 lead. Jackson Lindell added another at the 12:32 to mark to give the Indians a four-goal advantage. 

A power play goal by Baars just 3:08 into the second had Mosinee on the verge of putting the Hodags into run time again, but Rhinelander did not concede a goal the rest of the way.

“After their fourth goal, they were playing their whole bench, but they were still playing their top guys too and we just we had a rough first period,” Laggis said. “I thought Asher played really good in the second and third, made a really nice saves and we played a lot better in our D zone in the second and third. I’m not saying we were flawless by any stretch, but we played a lot better.”

Rivord stopped 41 shots for Rhinelander as the Hodags were outshot 46-17. Laggis noted the Hodags had some decent scoring chances, but couldn’t get past either Aiden Karst of Andrew Lingl, who combined for a shutout.

“We had a couple really nice scoring chances and just absolutely couldn’t bury. Timber (Cronauer) had just a chance you’d like to have back and Drake Nelson had a couple chances. So, you know, we got a score some goals, that’s for sure, but I thought that we played pretty hard in the second and the third.” 

Trainer’s room

One bright spot to come from Thursday’s game was the return of sophomore defenseman Gabe Kennedy to the lineup only one week after sustaining what looked to be a scary knee injury in a home loss to Shawano/Bonduel.

“The thing about Gabe is he’s going to give you everything that he’s got,” Laggis said. “He’s just going to work really hard. You’re not ever going to catch him on a backcheck, not trying to get back or in the D zone, not trying to play hard or whatever. He just won’t do that. The other thing is he will never come to the bench and scream at his teammates or ever do anything like that. So it was a joy to have him back tonight, frankly. I was glad to see that.”

GNC Tourney ahead

The road doesn’t get any easier for the Hodags tonight at Tomahawk. The Hatchets are the top-ranked team in Division 2 and knocked off second-ranked Somerset 5-2 on the road Friday.

Tomahawk routed the Hodags 10-0 when the teams played in Rhinelander back in December and Tuesday’s game will very likely be a preview of the WIAA tournament opener later this month. 

“It will be difficult,” he said. “We’ll definitely have to just go to go to Tomahawk Tuesday and play our absolute best and let those chips fall. Then we’ll go from there and we’ll have several other conference tournament games and try to be as competitive as we can be and keep trying to improve.”

Rhinelander will then come home on Thursday to face Kingsford, Mich. in a non-conference contest. That will likely be a tough matchup, too, considering the Flivvers skated to a 2-2 tie with Lakeland last Tuesday.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].