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Hodags stop Medford 4-3

By HodagSports.com Staff, 12/14/11, 7:58PM CST

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Sometimes the road isn't such a bad place

From HodagSports.com

Sometimes the road isn't such a bad place. Monday night the Rhinelander Hodags put on their traveling shoes and headed to the Simek Recreation Center in Medford to take on the Raiders in a GNC matchup. And when the snow dust had settled, Rhinelander came away with a very impressive victory for their first win of the season. A lot of things went right for the Hodags against Medford and it all started with Rhinelander's ability to put some offensive plays together.

When the puck dropped to start the game it didn't take long for the home team to jump ahead, and thrill their fans with a 1-0 advantage that stretched into a 2-0 lead at the end of the second period. It had to be like déjà vu all over again for the Hodags. Nobody would've been surprised if the team had a let-down going into the final period, thinking this game was going to be like the others so far this season. And it almost did in that final period, trailing by 2 and having a player go down hard. But that's not the make-up of the Hodags. Instead of dropping their collective heads and quitting, they reached down deep and fought back to grab the victory.

"We were really kind of on our heels at the end of the second," Coach Laggis said. He went on to say that his young team almost lost their composure when one of their own got injured but they rebounded in the final stanza and turned things around.

The Hodags aren't built to score 8 or 9 goals a game so when they went down by 2 they knew they couldn't let Medford score any more if they had any chance of pulling this one out. Then on the first power play of the 3rd period Joe Zuiker had one of his 3 goals in that period to cut the deficit in half.

     Rhinelander suddenly had a feeling things were finally going to swing their way only to see that hope ripped away when they gave up a bad goal that handed the lead right back to Medford 3-1. Then as if it came straight out of a movie, one that Joe Zuiker couldn't have written any better himself, the Hodags rallied back on the strength of his hat trick.

"Joe Zuiker was phenomenal in the third period," Laggis said. "He scored three of those four (goals in the 3rd period). Bobby Estabrook had a blast from the point and so we really did some good things in the third."

And for the first time this year you're not seeing Jake Arno listed as the goalie with the most saves in a Hodag hockey game. The reason is Rhinelander put the puck on net a whopping 43 times and it was Medford's goalie, Alec Waldhart, who posted the most saves with 39 in a losing effort. And while the young goalie for Rhinelander was still stellar between the pipes, coming up with 30 saves of his own, it was his teammates finally getting some offensive pressure going that helped him out tonight. Coach Laggis has said all along that they needed to get more from their offense to not only take the pressure off his goalie but to put points on the board. Tonight the Hodags did just that.

"Arno did a good job," according to his head coach. "He was really solid, he made some good saves and this is two games in a row now that he's improved his level of play." Laggis expects great things for his freshman goal tender not only in the remainder of this season but in his hockey career.

Rhinelander out shot the Medford Raiders 43-33, and in the wake of setting their team goal of 42 shots on goal before the game, the Hodags were very pleased with their output. The team had set a certain number of shots each player had to make during the game and as the coach put it, put more rubber on the net is always a good thing. In their last game the Hodags managed only 13 shots on goal but scored 3 times so the coaches were stressing the point of putting more shots on net. And against Medford they succeeded.

"We're much closer to where we want to be with the shots (on goal)," said Laggis. "That was good."

Part of what Coach Laggis said to his team going into the last period against Medford was to keep their cool. He knew that Medford is a hard working team and prone to playing a little out of control at times so he wanted to make sure his team didn't fall prey to that. As it turned out, the Hodags managed to stay calm under fire at the end, and for the whole game for that matter, only serving 4 minutes in the box while Medford tripled that penance time with 12 minutes in penalties.

"We just talked about focusing in," Laggis said, "about coming out in the third period, about making 10 foot shots and catching them, and putting a lot of shots on goal and getting one to fall." They thought that if they could get one goal during that time frame they could get things going.

Laggis' intermission talk proved to be spot on. His team came out and kept their cool and didn't take any penalties while Medford committed 2 that set the Hodags up on a pair of power plays, and Rhinelander scored both times.

One of the things the Hodags still need to improve on is their man advantage power plays. Monday night Rhinelander skated a half dozen times with an extra man but managed to only score on 2 of them. And in one instance, Medford scored while skating short handed. Although it didn't cost them the game against the Raiders, it is something that Coach Laggis is working on with his club.

Moving ahead, if the Hodags stay focused they can get better as the year goes on. But everyone on the team realizes it's going to take a team effort. Laggis pointed to the fact that he had kids on the bench who were just as excited as the players scoring on the ice and that's the way it has to be in order for the team to win as a team. And it begins with leadership and a craving to get better, something the Hodags possess.

"Obviously we're 1-6 here, it's not like we're a powerhouse," said the coach. "But I can tell you this, we have kids moving in the right direction and they're really trying to improve." Laggis went onto say, "And we have some good leadership."

Rhinelander (1-6-0, 1-4-0 Great Northern) returns home to host Shawano on December 20th at the RIA.

Scoring:
1st period: M, Max Bernklau (12:20) (PP) assist: Cole Loertscher

2nd period: M, Erik Southworth (13:52) (SH)

3rd period: R, Bobby Estabrook (5:34) (PP) assists: Ben Franson, Kyle Loher
3rd period: R, Joe Zuiker (9:04) (PP)
3rd period: M, Cole Quednow (5:58) assists: Max Bernklau, Josh Buehler
3rd period: R, Joe Zuiker (11:22) assists: Mike Zuiker
3rd period: R, Joe Zuiker (13:28) assists: Bobby Estabrook

Saves: Medford (Alec Waldhart) 30, Rhinelander (Jake Arno) 39

WiPH Game Summaries