Short-handed Hodags fall to Shawano

The Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team was unable to keep up with Shawano/Bonduel in non-conference play Thursday night, falling 5-1 to the Hawks at the Rhinelander Ice Arena.

It marked the second time the Hodags lost to the Hawks by a 5-1 score this year. Just like in the season opener Nov. 26, the Hodags got to within 2-1 but faded late against a deeper Shawano team. 

Already thin to begin with, the Hodags were without seniors Karter Massey (concussion) and Zach Edyvean (illness) Thursday night and dealt with more injury issues throughout the contest. 

“I’m not going to just keep hitting the same drum here over and over. I mean, we’re clearly very short-handed. You know, you have five seniors and two of them aren’t playing tonight and we’re down another guy the first period,” coach M.J. Laggis said. “It’s overwhelming to have a shift going on out there and not have one defenseman on the bench and talking forwards about who’s going to go play D.”

Blake Knope and Gavin Hundt, Shawano’s two leading scorers, each found the back of the net twice Thursday night for the Hawks (10-7-0). Shawano scored in every period and outshot the Hodags 37-29.

Knope gave Shawano the lead 4:05 into the first period, banging home a centering pass from Hundt. Knope doubled the lead 1:41 into the second period on a wrist shot that beat Hodag goalie Asher Rivord, gloveside.

    Rhinelander’s Logan Leonard plays the puck in the defensive zone against Shawano/Bonduel’s Blake Knope during the third period of a non-conference boys’ hockey game at the Rhinelander Ice Arena Thursday, Jan. 23. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Rhinelander (2-13-0, 0-4-0-0 Great Northern) got a goal back on Kadin Rodziczak’s third goal of the year late in the second period. He fired from the right point and his shot bounced off goalie Kaiden Thornborrow’s stick and into the top left corner of the net. That was the only blemish against Thornborrow, who recorded 28 saves for the Hawks. 

Getting to the end of a period without allowing any further damage has been an issue for the Hodags this year, and it was again on Thursday. Hundt scored from point-blank range with 1:36 remaining in the second period and Rhinelander’s Timber Cronauer was called for interference a short time later. That penalty resulted in a Jeremy Helmuth power play goal 10 seconds into the third period, which gave the Hawks a 4-1 lead. 

“I thought at the end of the second when we scored that goal and it was 2-1, if we could have just got into the intermission there, you know, we were doing a lot of good things,” Laggis said. “I think we played two really hard periods. We battled hard in the first and played particularly well. I thought the second, we played a lot harder and made a lot better passes and started seeing a few things at neutral ice that were open and connecting.”

Hundt rounded out the scoring 4:15 into the third period, essentially firing into an open net after Rivord left his crease and mishandled the puck. 

The Hodags’ lack of depth, especially on defense, showed throughout the game. Gabe Kennedy, Jack Turek and Riley Squires started the game as the Hodags three available defensemen with Edyvean sick and Rodziczak sitting for most of the first period as a result of a double minor he incurred toward the end of last Thursday’s contest at Medford. Turek left the game in the first period due to a hand laceration but returned later in the contest. Penalties on Squires and Rodziczak less than a minute apart early in the second period knocked the Hodags down to only two defensemen at the time. 

The team’s blue line depth took another serious blow midway through the second period when Kennedy went down with an apparent  left knee injury and did not return to the contest. It was Kennedy’s first game since Jan. 11 after missing the last two contests under concussion protocol. 

“I was so excited today to get Gabe back. He got cleared to play again today, and, just to have a kid that loves hockey and have a kid that skates so hard every drill and everything he does, that’s refreshing and I love it. It was so nice to get him back,” Laggis said. “He was hurt earlier in the game and then the one behind the net, I never even saw him laying there until coach (Dave) Denis got out in the ice before me. So you lose him and you know that it doesn’t look good. We’ll find out.”

Penalties compounded the Hodags’ problems in the third period as things devolved late. Rhinelander was penalized 10 times for 20 minutes in the contest. Six of the infractions occurred in the third period.

“You got control what you can control. Maybe there were some ridiculous, ticky-tack penalties called tonight, and I think there were, but we also bring it on with doing other things,” Laggis said. “Whether you try to trip someone or not, if you trip someone, your stick is under their skates. It’s still a trip. You know, if you run your mouth and the referee hears you, guess what? It’s a misconduct. A lot of unraveling in the third and you know, coach Denis said it best. When you’re not getting help from officials — and that does happen to everybody in hockey — you can’t compound it and create more problems for yourself and we did that.”

Rhinelander had chances to trim the lead, but were bitten by bad luck. Dylan Shefveland hit the bottom of the crossbar on a shot early in the second period, only to have the puck carom away from the net. Cronauer hit the left post on a shot later in the period. 

The Hodags will wrap up GNC regular season play with a trio of contest this week, which began with a make-up contest at Waupaca last night that concluded after press time for today’s edition. The Hodags will host Lakeland Thursday at the RIA and then travel to Mosinee for a make-up game on Friday. A non-conference game at Chequamegon/Phillips originally scheduled for tonight has been moved to Thursday, Feb. 13 to accommodate the rescheduled conference games. 

“We’re going just try to get as ready as we can for Waupaca and have the week that we’re going to have,” Laggis said.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].