Three-goal third costs Hodag hockey vs. Antigo

The Rhinelander High School boys’ hockey team showed improvement from its first meeting of the season against the Antigo Red Robins, but it wasn’t enough to earn a GNC victory over its longtime rivals.

Ethan Novy scored twice in the third period, and the Red Robins scored three times over the final 17 minutes, to defeat the Hodags 4-1 Tuesday night at the Rhinelander Ice Arena. 

The Hodags (1-17-0, 1-8-0-0 Great Northern) lost to the Robins (12-6-0, 5-4-0-0 Great Northern) 6-2 in Antigo back in December. This time around, the Hodags played a scoreless first period with the Robins and were knotted at 1 apiece following the second.

“It was a lot more competitive,” Hodag coach M.J. Laggis said. “I was talking to the officials tonight, two of them talked to me after the game. That crew’s had us a number of times and they said, ‘The way you looked in December versus how you looked now is night and day, the kids have improved a lot. You look a lot better in the D zone than you did look.’ We have a long way to go, I get that, but, we’ve made a lot of progress, and it was a lot of different of a game than we had in Antigo, obviously.”

Rhinelander narrowly missed taking a 2-1 lead two minutes into the third period when Carsen Zadnik had a rebound chance clang off the right post. Moments later, Novy grabbed the loose puck behind his own net, skated end-to-end and scored on a wrist shot from the top of the circles to give Antigo the lead 2:15 into the third.

“That could have been 2-1 us right there, and that’s a big game changer,” Laggis said.

Antigo scored again 2 1/2 minutes later on a prolonged forecheck in the Hodag zone. Novy threw the puck in front of the net for Liam Burt, who gathered it in and scored on a backhander to make it 3-1.

Rhinelander called a timeout with 3:43 remaining to set up its end-game scenario, down two goals, but the plan went for naught as the Robins won the draw off the timeout and cycled the puck to Novy on the left circle. He fired past Rhinelander goalie Connor McGee to make it 4-1 with 3:35 to play. 

Antigo took the lead on a short-handed goal 9:54 into the second period when Jack Turek was unable to handle a puck at the point that bounced off the boards and ahead to Billy Portman, who cashed in on the breakaway chance. 

Turek made amends and tied the game roughly two minutes later as he was left open in the slot and fired home a one-timer off a centering pass from behind the net by Braydon Lorman.

“Really nice goal by Jack Turek. Lorman went behind the net, and Braydon Lorman threw a beautiful pass out to Jack, and Jack just buried at top shelf,” Laggis said. “That was a really nice sequence, a nice play. Really got energy going, made it a 1-1 game. And we rode that right through the second.”

Both teams finished with 26 shots in the contest. McGee made 22 stops in the loss for Rhinelander while his counterpart, Austin Martinson, made 25 saves in the Antigo cage.

“We got to get a little better on rebounds, because shots are pretty darn close to that game. Granted, (Martinson’s) a very good goalie. And we got to find a way to just, in the tightest of moments, keep that puck out of our zone, chip it out,” Laggis said. “That eight feet from our zone to the blue line. We just were not always winning that battle. Those are battles you got to win, because when you don’t win them, that extends the play in your defensive zone. It extends the play even longer. They get more shots, more traffic, more rebounds, and that’s when you get scored on.”

    Rhinelander’s Logan Leonard checks Antigo’s Ethan Novy (18) off the puck during the third period of a GNC boys’ hockey game at the Rhinelander Ice Arena Tuesday, Jan. 27. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Laggis highlighted the play of seniors Logan Leonard and Dylan Shefveland in the contest, noting Leonard’s versatility and Shefveland’s back checks and energy. 

While disappointed in the outcome, Laggis said Tuesday’s game was another rematch in which the Hodags played a better game the second time around. That’s important down the stretch as the Hodags’ final four games of the regular season — and whoever they draw in the first round of the WIAA tournament — will all be rematches from earlier in the year.

“There’s no such thing as a moral victory, but the thing for me is that we got some games we could still win yet. We got to go after it and keep trying to improve,” Laggis said.

The Hodags are back in action Saturday, facing Ashland in a 3 p.m. faceoff for a non-conference contest at the Rhinelander Ice Arena. Rhinelander will conclude GNC play at Lakeland this coming Tuesday.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].