Team review: RHS boys’ hockey

There’s no way to describe the 2024-25 season for the Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team other than a long, arduous road. 

Rhinelander took its lumps this year, posting a 3-22-0 record. It was the lowest win total for the Hodags since a string of three straight three-win seasons from 2010-11 to 2012-13. It also marked the first time that the Hodags went winless in Great Northern Conference play.

There were some correlations with those teams from the early 2010s, namely a lack of depth that had the Hodags skating thin much of the season. Though Rhinelander had 15 players listed on the roster, fielding three lines of forwards and four healthy defenseman proved to be a challenge virtually from the opening game right through a season-ending loss to eventual WIAA D2 state champion Tomahawk.

“Wish they would have had a different year, but the truth of the matter is we’re incredibly outmanned, short-staffed from week one of the season right to the end,” Hodag coach M.J. Laggis said after a 9-0 loss to the Hatchets in the postseason. “We had a lot of days with six, seven, forwards max and three (defensemen) that were available at practice with due to injury, due to sickness and other conditions.”

Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.

Offensive woes

Though Rhinelander had its struggles in all three zones of the ice, offense was perhaps the biggest drop off from the previous season. Part of that stands to reason, considering the team graduated its top two scorers from that team — including the program’s all-time leading scorer in Joey Belanger. 

But offense became extremely hard to come by this season as the Hodags averaged just 1.32 goals per game and suffered prolonged scoring droughts. 

Rhinelander was shutout in nearly half of its games this season — 12 out of 25 — and had two extended lulls in scoring. The Hodags were shutout in a string of six out of seven games between Dec. 7 and Jan. 7 — including four in a row to end that stretch. Rhinelander then suffered a five-game scoring drought between Jan. 30 and Feb. 7, after scoring one goal in each of the three games preceding that swoon.

“If we could score, we know that those games could have looked different for sure,” Laggis said following a 4-0 loss at Ashland Feb. 7 that was the final game in that drought. “We get scoring chances but we just we don’t score. We don’t finish very well. I should preface that we don’t get a ton of scoring chances but when we do, we’re not finishing very well. That’s going to be a big focus going forward.”

Highlights

There were a few highlights for the team on the season, which swept Chequamegon/Phillips 6-2 and 4-1 during the regular season. Rhinelander also recorded a 5-3 win over Medford on Jan. 11 to take third in the non-conference East/Merrill Invite.

“We emerged today,” Laggis said following that win. “It’s been a tough stretch and we’re trying to use positivity big time. Got the win today. Let’s go get another one. That’s the attitude.”

Conference lumps

Things didn’t go as well against Medford, a perennial conference back-marker, during GNC play. The Hodags were stymied by backup goaltender Jaxston Malzahn in a 5-1 loss to the Raiders just four days later in Rhinelander and then fell to the Raiders 4-3 in double overtime in the seventh-place game of the GNC tournament. The Hodags rallied from down 3-1 in that game to force bonus hockey, but lost moments into the 3-on-3 second overtime.

It was part of a winless season for the Hodags in GNC play. The Hodags allowed three third-period goals in a 6-4 loss to a short-handed Antigo squad in the conference opener Dec. 5. That proved to be Rhinelander’s closest defeat in GNC play until the double-overtime loss to the Raiders at season’s end.

Statbook

While the Hodags struggled offensively, there were a couple of bright spots in sophomore Drake Nelson and junior Dylan Shefveland. They were Rhinelander’s leading scorers this year with 15 points each. Nelson tallied 11 goals and four assists while Shefveland had nine goals and six helpers. 

“These two were both our leading scorers and not just leading scores, but really toward the end of the year too, those guys that we just had a lot of confidence in,” Laggis said during the team’s banquet. “These guys are going to have to be part of the offensive thrust moving forward.”

Senior defenseman Zach Edyvean was Rhinelander’s lone all-conference honoree, receiving honorable mention on the blue line. Defenseman Gabe Kennedy, despite missing four games due to injury, finished tied for third on the team with five points, all on assists. Seniors Karter Massey (1 goal, 4 assists) and Nate Cordy (0g, 5a) also finished with five points. Sophomore Kadin Rodziczak was the only other player besides Nelson and Shefveland to score more than two goals this year, tallying four on the season.

Meanwhile, in goal, sophomore Asher Rivord faced a baptism by fire in his first season as the Hodags’ No. 1 netminder. He faced 987 shots on the year — including 70 in a playoff loss to Tomahawk. He posted a 3-22-0 record with a .855 save percentage and a 5.67 goals against average. 

“This year by about mid-to-late January, I would really say that it was night and day,” Laggis said of Rivord during the banquet. “To be in that moment when you’re in there and you got the No. 1 team in the state (Tomahawk) just pounding the daylights out of you — shot, rebound, shot, rebound, shot, rebound — and you keep your composure probably something he could have done in November, but it was certainly something he was able to do in February, keep his head in there and play to the best of his ability.”

What’s next

While there’s optimism on the horizon — as evidenced by the Rhinelander Ice Association’s Peewee (12U) A team winning the WAHA Class 3A state title earlier this month — it will be a couple of years before that crop of players matriculates up to the high school level. 

The Hodags will graduate five seniors off this year’s squad — Edyvean, Massey, Cordy, Timber Cronauer and Van Tulowitzky. Those numbers will be replenished a bit by a crop of players moving up from the Bantam (14U) level, but the Hodags will go into next year mainly looking to improve with the group it currently has.

The Hodags held some practices during the final two weeks of the WIAA postseason that included some of those incoming Bantam players. While Laggis noted those practices went well, it’s going to take a group effort for the Hodags to begin to work their way off the bottom of the GNC next season. 

“The message has to be crystal clear on one thing. What you’re offseason is, is what your season’s going to become,” he said. “A big focus is just me trying to get these guys to see that they need to get in that weight room and work really hard. They need to take advantage of all offseason ice and you know, there’s a crew of guys coming in that are going to be young and wet behind the ears, but I’d like to see those guys make a lot out of it throughout the course of their career.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].