Northland Pines too much for Hodag hockey

The Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team could not keep up with Northland Pines Tuesday night, falling to the Eagles 11-2 in Great Northern Conference play at the Eagle River Sports Arena.

Two goals late in the first period were enough to open the floodgates for the Eagles (7-8-0, 2-2-0-0 Great Northern). They tacked on four goals in the second period and five more in the third to blow the game wide open. 

Rhinelander (2-11-0, 0-3-0-0 Great Northern) was outshot 55-13 in the contest, and the constant pressure in the defensive zone eventually overwhelmed the Hodags. 

“As the game wore on, you know, it’s shot, rebound, shot, rebound, shot, rebound. They’re going to start scoring and they did,” Hodag coach M.J. Laggis said. 

Despite getting outshot 19-2 in the opening stanza, the Hodags nearly got out of the first period scoreless. However, two goals in a span of 54 seconds put the Eagles in control. Josh Graves opened the scoring at the 15:25 mark of the period and Sam Shrock added a goal with 39.4 seconds left in the period as Pines took a 2-0 lead to the first intermission.

“We hung in there the first period and if we could’ve got there scoreless, it would’ve been a big shot in the arm for us,” Laggis said. “The first period we gave up a huge number of shots. We were outshot horribly, however we hung in there. We played OK in the D zone and kept them at bay. (Goalie) Asher (Rivord) made a ton of really nice saves and held us in their big time and that was great. He played really really hard.”

Ryder Will scored 6:36 into the second period for Pines and Peter Anderson added a tally 79 seconds later to double the lead to 4-0. Cooper Saari scored short-handed for the Eagles at the 11:37 mark before the Hodags got on the board on sophomore Kadin Rodziczak’s second goal of the year. He slapped one in from the right point from Dylan Shefveland on a faceoff for a power-play tally at the 12:13 mark.

“Kadin Rodziczak did a good job on the power play of keeping that shot lower,” Laggis said. “You know we’ve been talking to him a ton about shooting low and good things will happen and he did. Nice power play goal, so that was a good thing.”

Pines answered quickly, however. Michael Schmidt scored his first of three goals on the night just 14 seconds later and the Eagles led 6-1 through two periods. 

Graves scored on the power play 23 seconds into the third period before the Hodags answered with Shefveland’s fifth goal of the season — and third in the last two games — just 20 seconds later. Shefveland crashed the net and finished a centering pass from behind the end line by Nate Cordy.

“Dylan Shefveland did a good job of going to the net on his goal,” Laggis said. “That’s something that we’re talking about all the time is going to the net. You know go to the net and make a play. He did that.”

Schmidt scored 3:55 into the third period and then the Eagles scored twice on the power play following a major boarding penalty on Rhinelander’s Karter Massey. Schmidt finished off his hat trick at the 5:35 mark while Shrock scored his second at the 7:35 mark.

Graves finished off the scoring, and his hat trick, on a goal with 4:14 remaining. 

Rivord made 44 saves in the loss for Rhinelander. Laggis said his sophomore netminder faced a long night with the Hodags relegated to two lines and three defensemen during points of the contest. 

“We’re able to run our systems in the D zone and we’re able to hold our head up for a while, but really short bench and tired legs. Eventually it falls on Asher and it’s difficult,” he said. “He made a lot of good saves tonight but they put a lot of shots on them.”

The loss snapped a recent run of good fortune for the Hodags at the Eagle River Sports Arena, where they have won five times since the start of the 2020-21 season. Prior to that the Hodags had last won in Eagle River in 1991.

The Hodags were back home Thursday taking on Medford in a game that concluded after press time for today’s edition. Rhinelander will play another GNC contest at Mosinee this coming Tuesday.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].