The 2021–22 Lake Superior State Lakers men's ice hockey season was the 56th season of play for the program, the 49th at the Division I level and the 42nd season in the CCHA conference. The Lakers represented Lake Superior State University and were coached by Damon Whitten, in his 8th season.

Season Lake Superior State joined with six other members of the WCHA to restart the CCHA for the 2021–22 season.

The Lakers were hoping to build upon their first NCAA tournament appearance in 25 years with a strong performance. Unfortunately, they lost three critical games in the first two weeks. While they went undefeated in their succeeding seven games, the strength of their opponents kept them out of the polls. A bad stretch in November also cost Lake State and put the Lakers on the wrong side of .500.

The defense looked like it had recovered during a weekend split with top-ranked Minnesota State but then the offense flagged the following week against lowly Ferris State. The team went up and down in their play for several months but began to show a bit more consistency towards the end of the season. However, despite the improvement, Lake Superior was too far down the PairWise rankings to make the tournament without a conference championship.

Lake Superior began postseason play at home against Northern Michigan and laid an egg in the first game. The Lakers allowed the first five goals of the game and were only able to score with less than 5 minutes to play. They were much better in the rematch, winning 3–2 to tie the series and force a deciding rubber match. After surrendering the first goal, the Lakers reeled off three in a row to build a 3–1 lead early in the second period. Northern Michigan replied with a deluge of goals, scoring four times in the span of 8 minutes to take a commanding lead. Lake State was unable to add to their total for most of the third and were forced to pull Ethan Langenegger in desperation. The ploy worked once but the Wildcats managed to stop a tying goal from being scored and the Lakers' season was over.

Departures Alex Ambrosio Forward Graduate transfer to Canisius Ashton Calder Forward Transferred to North Dakota Hampus Eriksson Forward Graduate transfer to Northern Michigan Niko Esposito-Selivanov Forward Signed professional contract (Hannover Indians) Chase Gamelin Forward Graduation (retired) Lukas Kälble Defenseman Graduate transfer to Clarkson Michael Mannara Defenseman Transferred to York Mareks Mitens Goaltender Graduation (signed with Binghamton Devils) Yuki Miura Forward Graduation (signed with Iowa Heartlanders) Will Riedell Defenseman Graduate transfer to Ohio State Pierre-Luc Veillette Forward Left program (signed with Saint-Georges Cool FM 103.5)

Recruiting Timo Bakos Forward 21 Augsburg, GER Cole Craft Forward 20 North Bay, ON Easton Hesse Goaltender 21 Beaumont, AB Grant Hindman Defenseman 19 Oakland, MI Logan Jenuwine Forward 23 Romeo, MI; transfer from Arizona State Sebastian Miedema Defenseman 21 Gävle, SWE Josh Nixon Forward 21 Mississauga, ON Brett Roloson Forward 20 Newport Beach, CA Harrison Roy Forward 21 Lakeville, MA; transfer from Boston College Dawson Tritt Forward 21 Spokane, WA Jordan Venegoni Forward 21 Livonia, MI Jared Westcott Forward 22 Imperial, MO; transfer from Penn State Jake Willets Defenseman 22 Erie, MI; transfer from Ferris State

Roster As of August 20, 2021.

Standings

Schedule and results

!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular season

!colspan=12 style=";" |

|- align="center" bgcolor="#e0e0e0" |colspan=12|Lake Superior State Lost Series 1–2

Scoring statistics C 36 15 29 44 31 RW 37 10 25 35 8 D 36 3 24 27 63 RW 24 13 9 22 10 F 27 9 11 20 4 RW 37 8 12 20 16 F 29 7 12 19 8 D 36 5 11 16 24 C 34 7 7 14 10 D 35 6 8 14 32 F 26 5 6 11 24 F 33 4 6 10 14 D 35 3 6 9 48 F 35 6 2 8 0 C 34 2 6 8 12 RW 23 2 3 5 27 D 35 0 5 5 56 D 16 0 4 4 10 D 35 0 4 4 10 F 29 1 2 3 0 C 19 1 1 2 0 G 1 0 1 27 F 1 0 0 0 0 D 3 0 0 0 0 F 4 0 0 0 0 F 7 0 0 0 4 G 16 0 0 0 0 G 22 0 0 0 0 D 26 0 0 0 10 Total 107 193 300 453

Goaltending statistics 22 1313 10 11 1 58 602 3 .912 2.65 16 900 8 7 0 41 419 0 .911 2.73 Empty Net - 18 - - - 5 - - - - Total 37 2231 18 18 1 104 1021 3 .908 2.80

Rankings

PollWeekPre12345678910111213141516171819202122232425 (Final) USCHO.comNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR-NR USA TodayNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNRNR Note: USCHO did not release a poll in week 24.

Awards and honors Jacob Bengtsson CCHA Second Team Louis Boudon Josh Nixon CCHA Rookie Team

References