Hodag hockey drops three over holiday week

The Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team enters 2026 still looking for its first win of the season. The Hodags were close on a couple of occasions last week, before things unraveled in a significant way.

Rhinelander dropped all three of its games last week, falling to Manistique, Mich. 7-1 and Kingsford, Mich. 6-1 Dec. 30 and 31 in a holiday tournament at the Rhinelander Ice Arena before suffering a 9-3 loss at Pacelli on Friday night. 

Though the final scores didn’t indicate it, the Hodags legitimately had a shot to win two of those games before things went sideways. Rhinelander (0-11-0, 0-4-0-0 Great Northern) was tied at 1 in the third period against Manistique and trailed Pacelli 3-2 late in the second period. Both times, however, the opposition answered with a rash of goals that put the contests out of reach.

“We got to start with that, being more disciplined, obviously,” coach M.J. Laggis said after Friday’s loss at Pacelli. “We feel like we’re preaching it, talking it, coaching it. And we’re just, we’re not getting any results. So, you know, we got to go back to the drawing board and figure out how we’re going to play more disciplined hockey and go from there.”

Manistique 7, Rhinelander 1

In what seemed to be a blink of an eye the Hodags went from battling for their first win of the season to a game that finished in run time during its Dec. 30 contest against Manistique. 

The Emeralds scored six times in the final 8 minutes, 46 seconds of the contest to pull away to a 7-1 win. 

Rhinelander allowed a pair of empty-net goals in that span, after falling behind 3-1 with 5:43 remaining, but allowed two more goals in the final 2 minutes, 14 seconds with the outcome virtually decided. 

“That score was not indicative of the game at all, but I was really disappointed in the ending and that we couldn’t apply pressure and try to create scoring chances versus giving up the open-netters,” Laggis said. “But, you know, that is what it is. It was another learning experience for us as a group. And it was a hard-fought game against a team that’s about like us.”

Levi Vruggink broke open the scoreless tie, converting a 2-on-1 breakaway for Manistique at the 8:14 mark of the third and, from there, everything seemed to break the Emeralds’ way. 

Cole Watchorn scored on a rebound to make it 3-1, and the Hodags pulled goalie Connor McGee for an extra attacker with 4:17 remaining. Bjarne Draack fired a puck out of the defensive zone from his own circles that found its way home with 3:48 remaining. The Hodags pulled McGee again down 4-1 moments after winning the ensuing faceoff, but this time Oliver Sevarns fired one home from inside his own blue line to make it a 5-1 affair.

Andrew Coyer and Matthew Luebkert added goals in the final moments to cap off the barrage.

“My formula is always, when you’re down by two, anytime under four minutes, you got to go for it,” Laggis said. “We did. And they drained two open-netters from in their own zone, deep, and that doesn’t happen very often. They did it twice. And then the wheels were completely out the wagon, and they just scored, scored, scored.” 

Rhinelander struck first on a goal by Carson Plehn 2:49 into the contest. Luke Luebkert tied it for Manistique at the 10:09 mark of the period, and the score remain knotted at 1-1 until the Emeralds’ late outburst. Shots were even through two periods and 23 apiece, though Manistique controlled the third and outshot the Hodags 38-32 overall. McGee made 31 saves on 36 chances in the loss. 

Kingsford 6, Rhinelander 1

    Rhinelander’s Kaden Rodziczak carries the puck into the offensive zone ahead of Kingsford’s Tyler Berglund during the second period of a non-conference boys’ hockey game at the Rhinelander Ice Arena Wednesday, Dec. 31. Rodziczak recorded an assist for Rhinelander in a 6-1 loss to the Flivvers. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

It was a different story Dec. 31 as the Hodags started slow and got better as the game went, but were in a big hole by the time they gained traction. 

Kingsford outshot Rhinelander 22-3 through two periods and held a 5-1 lead at that point. Though Rhinelander had an 8-4 edge in shots in the third, the Flivvers tacked on one more goal to account for the final margin. 

“We didn’t create many scoring chances today. I thought we went through periods of the game, though, you know, for seven or even eight, nine minutes at a chunk where we were playing really good defense and getting pucks to turn over and getting them to go the other way. We were unable to do much with them in the offensive zone, but (were) getting some turnovers,” Laggis said.

Jack Spreen opened the scoring for Kingsford on the power play 4:19 into the contest. Tallies by Casey Clinch and Paolo Lenz less than a minute apart late in the period gave the Flivvers a 3-0 lead after one. 

Will Murvich added to the Kingsford lead midway through the second. Rhinelander got back to within three goals as Jack Turek scored off a faceoff win by Kadin Rodziczak, and the Hodags appeared to have an opening back into the game after a kneeing penalty on Kingsford’s Trinton Paynter put Rhinelander on the power play. Murvich dashed those hopes, however, with a short-handed goal that made it 5-1, and Clisch tacked on one more goal with 2:30 remaining in the contest. 

Rhinelander successfully killed off a five-minute major power play following a holding call on Turek early in the third period. Laggis said the kill was a bright spot in a solid final 17 minutes for his team.

“We did do some good things on that five-minute penalty kill,” he said. That was just an absolute difficult situation. And you could see they got a nice power play. And they were trying to get in that 1-3-1, and we got in our wedge-plus-1. We weren’t good on it early in the game. But later in the game, I thought we were excellent on it. That was a really, really good five-minute kill, and we actually ran our kill. We ran that really well at the end of the game.”

Kingsford outshot Rhinelander 26-11 in the contest. McGee made 20 saves in defeat.

Pacelli 9, Rhinelander 3

Penalties were the turning point Friday night. The Hodags committed 10 of them and sat for 31 minutes in the penalty box. Those infractions led to four power play goals that allowed the Cardinals to take control. 

Down 3-2 late in the second period, defenseman Carson Zadnik was called for a major checking from behind penalty for a hit along the boards to Pacelli’s Henry Gerritsen. The Cardinals responded quickly with goals by Ty Holmes and Peyton Ledocq to make it 5-2 before Asher Rivord was called for a slashing penalty. Brady Foster added a goal on the 5-on-3 power play to give Pacelli a 6-2 lead after two periods. 

Pacelli finished the night 4 of 10 on the power play. They scored their first goal with Caleb McGregor 6:11 into the contest after the Hodags were whistled for too many players on the ice. 

While Pacelli was penalized five times in the contest, it appeared as though, more often than not, the reactionary penalties were the ones drawing the whistles.

“We didn’t control our own actions, and that’s the biggest thing about it,” Laggis said. “Don’t put it in the hands of someone else. It doesn’t matter what Pacelli’s doing. It doesn’t matter what kind of game the officials have. We didn’t control the controllables — and that’s our attitude and our actions.”

Dylan Shefveland scored Rhinelander’s first goal of the night, banging home a rebound from Ryan Carey 6:32 into the first that tied the game at 1. Gerrittsen scored at the 10:38 mark to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead after a period. 

Zane Phillips added to the lead just 48 seconds into the second period. Rhinelander got back within a goal at the 11:26 mark on Asher Rivord’s first goal of the night, as he put home a rebound from Drake Nelson. 

Rivord also tipped in a shot from Gabe Kennedy that made it 7-3 at the 11:39 mark of the third. 

Adding to the Hodags’ issues were a pair of injuries sustained during the game after hard collisions into the boards. Rodziczak was elbowed into the boards by Foster 2:06 into the contest. Carey left the game with 9:27 remaining after it appeared he lost an edge and crashed into the boards.

“(Rodziczak) went on the boards really hard and banged up his right knee significantly. He did come back, but, you know, not at full strength,” Laggis said. “Ryan Carey …  he went into the boards (with his) shoulder, head. And so that’s really disappointing because he just came back from (a concussion) and was out 3-plus weeks.”

Rhinelander outshot Pacelli 42-40 in the game. McGee made 31 saves in the loss.

Up next

The Hodags hop back in action with a pair of Great Northern Conference games this week, hosting Mosinee at the Rhinelander Ice Arena tonight before traveling to Medford Thursday to take on the Raiders.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].