2021–22 Lake Superior State Lakers men's ice hockey season

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
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==
Poll 	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week	Week
Poll 	Pre 	1 	2 	3 	4 	5 	6 	7 	8 	9 	10 	11 	12 	13 	14 	15 	16 	17 	18 	19 	20 	21 	22 	23 	24 	25 (Final)
USCHO.com	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	- 	NR
USA Today	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR 	NR
Note: USCHO did not release a poll in week 24.
==References==
Category:Lake Superior State Lakers men's ice hockey seasons
Lake Superior State Lakers
Lake Superior State Lakers