Box Score Charles Savoie nearly had the winner in his Laker debut. And what a winner it would have been.

The Third-Year forward plucked the puck off of a defender at the Windsor Lancers (0-0, 0-0 OUA) blue line and neatly tucked it home to put Lake Superior State (0-0, 0-0 CCHA) up midway through the third period. But Connor MacPherson struck with 12 seconds remaining in regulation to earn a 2-2 tie for the host Lancers, and the hosts won the shootout. It was MacPherson's second goal of the game.

With 18 new players on the LSSU roster, the Lakers rolled into Windsor, ON, CAN and nearly walked away from the Vollmer Recreation Complex with an exhibition victory. Laker Head Coach Damon Whitten was impressed with the play of the Savoie on his LSSU debut.

"I thought Charlie was our best guy," he said. "Protected pucks, strong on pucks. He held guys off and didn't turn pucks over. It's good to see him get rewarded. It was really good to see him in game action. He's a guy that's scored at this level and at every level. He led our team playing the right way. We'll need him to continue to do that and guys to read off of him and play more like what he did."

William Samuelsson struck for the Lakers' opening goal, stuffing in a wrap-around backhander to beat Lancers netminder Max Donoso. Down 1-0, Samuelsson burst up the right wing side, but his centering pass was knocked right back to his stick. Reacting rapidly, he quickly zipped around the goal and crammed home the backhand shot, sneaking the puck in to tie the game 1-1 at 9:47 of the third.

"I thought a really good play by the first-year forward," Whitten said. "Really good wide speed. I thought at times we were often times too cute on the rush. It was a good play by him to drive the puck in deep and get the defender to turn and have to defend. It's a good, heavy play at the net, which we didn't have a lot of tonight. It's a good, strong play by the first-year forward."

John Herrington, who leads this year's team in collegiate games played with 109, assisted the goal.

"I think we saw a lot of new bodies, a lot of young bodies around, you need upperclassmen to lead," Whitten said. "We feel good about where his game's at. We're looking for him to continue to make an impact on our team and lead this young group."

Andrew Oke made 34 saves in goal for LSSU, playing the entirety of the contest.

Friday's contest doesn't officially count toward the Lakers record or statistics. In fact, it doesn't count toward the Lancers' record either - this was their fourth exhibition game so far, while it was just the first for LSSU. But it's game action for the first time this season and the first time in a while that any of these players have gone against someone who isn't on their own team in a practice situation. No matter what, there was a lot of new information to glean from Friday night.

Whittenn said, "There's a lot of learning to be done with this group. That's the beauty of it. You get through that, have a short turnaround here and do it again tomorrow afternoon. We're going to look quite a bit different with some line changes. But, you learn through that and certainly learned that we've got to have a better 60 minutes."

The Lakers and the Lancers square off at the Essex Centre Sports Complex at 3:00 PM on Saturday in nearby Essex, ON. Like Friday's contest, Saturday's game is untelevised, with live coverage on 99.5 YES FM and yesfm.net. James Cardarelli calls the action, with pregame beginning at around 2:30 PM.

Follow the Lakers throughout the 2026-27 as Lake Superior State celebrates 60 Years of Laker Hockey. Download the new Lake Superior State Lakers app, now available on the App Store and Google Play for the latest news, scores and updates.