Hodag hockey’s upset bid against Lakeland falls short

After losing 10-0 the first time around to Lakeland, the Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team gave the Thunderbirds a much different contest Tuesday night in the rematch.

Colton Berray broke a 1-all tie with 1:56 remaining and the T-Birds tacked on an empty-net goal late to defeat the Hodags 3-1 in both team’s Great Northern Conference finale in Minocqua. 

Berray had a three-point night for Lakeland (8-9-0, 4-6-0-0 Great Northern) and raced end-to-end on what proved to be the game-winner. 

“The kid that scored, the goal we gave up was a rocket shot, top shelf. Man, we were right there. It would have been great to fight and get that thing to overtime,” Hodag coach M.J. Laggis said.

Regardless, the result was a far cry from the first meeting when Lakeland scored four times in the first period and rolled to a blowout victory. 

“We didn’t let them get started super fast. Games we let get away from us, we let another team just start fast and they score a minute, minute and a half into the game and then just keep rocking,” Laggis said. “The longer we’re able to keep a team down, the, the better the odds are that we’re able to kind of keep it tight till the end. Sometimes they get away at the end of the game too. But we really had a good focus tonight and we got to keep building on that.”

The Hodags (1-19-0, 1-9-0-0 Great Northern) got on the board first as defenseman Carsen Zadnik intercepted a pass out of the corner and walked in unabated off the right circle for the finish just 2:20 into the contest. 

“We scored first, which is really nice,” Laggis said. “It’s something that we don’t do very often. But it was really nice that Zadnik popped the goal there — hard working shift and got one to fall, so that was awesome.” 

Lakeland tied it at the 3:35 mark on the first as Spencer Swedberg tipped in a shot by Berray from the right point. 

Rhinelander pulled goalie Connor McGee for an extra attacker with 1:36 remaining, but struggled to generate scoring chances. Following a timeout with 51.6 seconds left, Lakeland won a faceoff in its own zone and Lawson Bain threw the puck from his own faceoff circle into the Hodags’ empty net. 

McGee made 35 saves for Rhinelander as Lakeland outshot Rhinelander 38-15 in the contest. It marked the second time this season that the freshman has stopped at least 90% of the shots he’s faced in a contest. 

“We controlled pucks better than other games and got a lot of good goaltending out of Connor McGee. We really battled,” Laggis said. “I’m really proud of our resilience. I thought a couple of seniors, defensemen, Dylan Shefveland and Logan Leonard played really, really hard tonight. They’ve really impressed me with their attitude, and it’s been a really good thing. Junior Gabe Kennedy is battling super hard. And you know, (Kadin) Rodziczak’s line with Kadin, Jack (Turek) and Drake (Nelson), they had some opportunities too. You know, we were whisper away from poking a few pucks home and Kadin played a really hard two-way game tonight.”

Ashland 7, Rhinelander 1

The Hodags dropped a non-conference contest against the Oredockers 7-1 Saturday, Jan. 31 at the Rhinelander Ice Arena. 

Ashland scored twice in each of the first two periods and sent the game to running time with a tally 42 seconds into the third period. 

Howard Maday each scored twice for Ashland, while Xander Gibbon and Eli Wickman both had a goal and two assists.

“They had a top line that was pretty fast, a couple players that were pretty skilled, and we definitely had trouble with them,” Laggis said. “We competed for stretches, had some nice scoring chances for short stretches, but we’re just unable to sustain, and make enough plays in the offensive zone to really get after them.”

Gibbon put the Oredockers on the board 5:13 into the contest and the Hodags tied it up at the 12:03 mark on a goal by Drake Nelson off an assist by Logan Leonard. 

“It was a nice shot from the point that he kept pretty nice tip on it. The old adage that we’re always talking about is put shots on goal and give them a chance and they’ll go,” Laggis said. 

It was all Ashland after that, however. Goals by Judd Justinak and Wickman 26 seconds apart late in the first period have Ashland a 3-1 lead at the first intermission. Cole Campbell scored prior to back-to-back goals by Maday late in the second and Isaac Eliason finished off the scoring moments into the third. 

Shots were 29-22 in favor of Ashland, though Laggis said the Oredockers had many more quality scoring chances. 

“The shots weren’t crazy. It was one of those situations where, 7-1 score, you would think the shots would just be crazy, but the shots are fairly comparable,” he said. “Some of our opportunities, rebounds are there and we just couldn’t capitalize on rebounds. The other thing is they were pretty big and they were, I’m not going to say real physical, but they’re physical to some degree, and some of our younger guys had trouble handling them.

McGee stopped 22 pucks in defeat for Rhinelander.

Up next

The Hodags were at Kingsford, Mich. Thursday for a game that concluded after press time for today’s edition and will close out the regular season with home games against Shawano Feb. 10 and Chequamegon/Phillips Feb. 12.  

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].