LSSU Lakers are just looking to improve (5 photos added)

SAULT STE. MARIE, MI -- All the Lake Superior State University Lakers men’s hockey team is looking to do this season is improve.

With former player and long-time Laker assistant coach Jim Roque replacing departed head coach Frank Anzalone over the summer, the Lakers will have new direction as they look to return to elite status in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) and the NCAA in their 40th anniversary season.

Although the Lakers have stumbled in recent seasons, it wasn’t that long ago that LSSU was the model program in the NCAA.

Under the direction of Anzalone in his first stint with the program and Jeff Jackson, who now runs the bench for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the Lakers won three national championships in 1988, 1992 and 1994.

"There is not so much a plan here as we are just trying to get better and get better quickly. We want to make it to Joe Louis just like every other team in our league. If it’s this year that’s good. But there is no real time line here like we want to be here or there by a certain time. We just want to have a good season and make it to the Joe Louis in the playoffs,” said Roque.

If the Lakers are to make improvements, this year will be as good an opportunity as any. The team returns 12 seniors, the most in the CCHA, has good speed and size.

If there is a primary area of concern, it is the team’s offensive struggles. Last season, the Lakers struggled to a 9-22-7 record and suffered three straight one goal losses including a 4-3 overtime loss to Nebraska-Omaha to eliminate them from the first round of the playoffs. In all, 10 of the team’s losses were by a goal.

This past weekend, the Lakers did see some positives in their exhibition split at the Taffy Abel Arena.

The Lakers showed good speed and puck movement in a 5-1 win over Ontario’s York Lions and a 4-3 loss to the U.S. National Under-18 Team.

Derek A. Smith had a solid offensive weekend for the Lakers by recording six points, including a pair of goals and two more assists in the win over York. Smith was named the game’s second star twice.

Nathan Ward, Troy Schwab and Derek R. Smith also scored over York while Ward, Colin Nicholson and Ren Fauci scored the Laker goals on Saturday.

"One of our goals this year is that we want to score more. We had plenty of chances to score (on Saturday) and put the game out of reach but those ones will start going in. Their game shape showed tonight as they have already played nine or 10 games and our guys will get better," said Roque.

"I thought we played really good. Jeff Jakaitis had an off night but it’s his first game and we’ve only had a week of practise and he hasn’t seen many shots because we’ve been trying to put in systems. I’m not worried about Jeff. He may have only stopped 85 per cent of the shots tonight but he is a 92 per cent goaltender. We had some nice chances and we scored some nice power play goals.

"Like I told our guys after the second period, I thought they played great for two periods and whether we win or lose we are back to 0-0 anyway after the exhibition games. We just need to get ready for a big game against Colgate next Friday."

For York, a pair of former Soo Greyhounds made their presence known. Jon Hedberg scored his team's only goal while Kevin Druce made the start in goal.

The Lakers, who play seven of their first eight games at home, are back in action this weekend against Colgate at the Abel Arena. Game times are 7:30 p.m. on Friday and 7 p.m. on Saturday.

"(Colgate) is a team that went to the NCAA tournament last year and have been very good in the ECAC. They are a good, tight, hard working team that plays a lot of low scoring games. This week we had a chance to see if we could keep up with speed, against Colgate we will see how hard we can work because they are a team that works hard and really battles,” said Roque.

Heading into the game against Colgate, Roque and his coaching staff of Tim Christian and Joe Shawhan will need to look at their roster and make some decisions heading into the regular season.

"Now I have to make the lineup. I saw some freshman (Friday) and some veterans (Saturday) and now we have to make some decisions this week. I’m not happy with a couple of guys I think could do more but we’ll talk about it this week,” added Roque.

"We have 29 guys right now and we need to look at whether we are going to keep 29 or if we are going to move a couple guys. But we do need to talk to some players and explain them the rules and whether they understand it or accept it."

The Lakers open the CCHA schedule at home with a pair of games against Ferris State on Oct. 21 and 22.