Hodag hockey blanked by Lakeland, falls to 0-7 in GNC

The first two-thirds of the season has been full of growing pains and learning moments for a young Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team. There were a lot more of those moments to be had Thursday, Jan. 15 in the final game of the first round of Great Northern Conference play.

Lakeland had three separate players score twice each as it rolled to a 10-0 win over the Hodags at the Rhinelander Ice Arena. 

The T-Birds (5-5-0, 2-4-0-0 Great Northern) kept the pedal down until the end of the game, scoring five times in the third period — including three times in the final 6:37 of the contest — against a depleted Hodag squad. Rhinelander (0-14-0, 0-7-0-0 Great Northern) put 25 shots on goal in the contest, but Lakeland senior Cam Bernard stopped them all as the Hodags were shut out for just the second time this season. 

“You don’t walk away from a game that’s 10 or 11, nothing and say, ‘Well, it was close, you know, if and but,’ but the fact is, in the first period, and in the second, we had a number of chances that were really good chances — not just throwing a puck vacantly on net, but some really good chances. We can’t get any of those to fall,” Hodag coach M.J. Laggis said. 

Lakeland amassed 38 shots in the contest, including 17 in a four-goal first period. Laggis said the Hodags struggled to slow down Lakeland’s attack, especially when it threw the puck to the weak side in order to create scoring chances. 

“We’re unable to get up there and close that gap and try to take that puck away,” he said of when Lakeland cycled the puck to its weak side defenseman. “And that’s really a frustrating part of our defense-zone game. If we could do that, and gap up a little bit, we can help our goalie and take more pressure off him. But it just, we’re unable to do that tonight. That was a soft spot in the zone. They threw the puck down low. We let two guys stand there (in front of the net) way too often.”

The T-Birds scored just 1:28 into the contest as Caden Schillinger stuffed home rebound off a Colton Berray breakaway chance. Unassisted goals by Noah Dube, Landon Van Berkel and Lawson Bain made it 4-0 after a period. 

Just as it was three nights earlier against Mosinee, the second period was Rhinelander’s most competitive period of hockey. The Hodags outshot the T-Birds 9-7 in the stanza and, if not for an unlucky break, would have gotten out of the period scoreless. 

    Rhinelander’s Carsen Zadnik separates Lakeland’s Sylvester Allen from the puck during the second period of a GNC boys’ hockey game in Rhinelander Thursday, Jan. 15. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Berray scored the only goal of the second at the 8:09 mark as he fired a shot from the left point that grazed off the back of Rhinelander’s Logan Leonard and deflected into the net.

“I thought we played a good second period. We lost that period 1-0, but the truth of the matter is that we have some good scoring opportunities, and if we could have got a few pucks to fall, the game could have felt a lot different,” Laggis said.

Penalties became an issue for Rhinelander late in the second period and into the third. The Hodags were penalized twice over the final 1:09 of the second, giving Lakeland a 5-on-3 power play coming out of intermission. 

Lawson Bain scored just at the first of those penalties expired 51 seconds into the third. After goals by Dube and Caden Schillinger made it 8-0, Leonard was called for a major interference penalty for action away from the puck. Sylvester Allen scored two power play goals after the penalty to round out the scoring. 

Rhinelander took yet another major penalty in the final seconds as Kadin Rodziczak was called for boarding. Initially, it was announced that Rodziczak additionally received a game disqualification penalty, however that penalty was rescinded following further discussion by the officials. 

“Taking a couple of 5 minutes at the end of the game, that’s just unacceptable hockey,” Laggis said and later added, “the biggest thing moving forward is we just cannot let emotions get out of hand at the end of games, and that’s just really, really frustrating for me right now … It’s something that we’re very concerned about. We start trying to play more physical, and we just turn that into something totally different. We crossed that line. So that part’s very disappointing.”

Connor McGee made 28 saves in the loss for Rhinelander. 

While the third period got away from the Hodags, Laggis said it did provide an opportunity for some of his younger skaters to see more ice time.

“You get it to run time in the third period, and then you’re in a real dilemma. You don’t have a JV team. So you’re really trying to play some kids that don’t get any ice at all. And that backfires, and you wind up giving up more goals,” he said. “And that’s to no discredit to the kids at all. That’s not what it is. It’s just, it’s really a fine line to try to keep the score lower than it is, right? Because you don’t want to give up 10, 11 goals. And at the same time, get everyone in the game — especially if you’re playing an opponent that’s going to continue to run their first line.”

The Hodags traveled to Marshfield Saturday for a non-conference game that concluded after deadline for today’s edition. Visit River

NewsOnline.com for a recap of that game and read a full report in Friday’s River News. 

Rhinelander is back in action tonight, hosting Medford in the second round of GNC play. The Hodags fell in overtime to the Raiders 3-2 back on Jan. 8. Rhinelander will also face Stevens Point Pacelli at home on Thursday in non-conference play. The Cardinals defeated Rhinelander 9-1 when the teams met in Stevens Point on Jan. 2.

With seven rematches scheduled over the final eight games of the regular season, Laggis said the Hodags have an opportunity to measure their improvement over the course of the season. 

“We had an overtime game with Medford. We’re going to see them again. We’re going to get some teams, Park Falls (Chequamegon), Shawano, that we want to just see how tight we can play with them for sure,” he said. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].