The Muskegon Lumberjacks dropped their second straight game, but once again earned a precious point in the standings on Friday night.
The Lumberjacks fell just short against the Under-18 Team USA squad, losing 9-8 in a shootout.
Muskegon is now 22-10-6 on the season, good for 50 points and a first place tied in the Eastern Conference with Chicago, which won its game tonight.
The Lumberjacks will return home next weekend to play Madison both Friday and Saturday night at the Mercy Health Arena. Both games are slated to start at 7:10 p.m.
Muskegon jumped out to a 3-1 lead after the first period as Phil Tresca scored a pair of goals during the opening period while Tyler Hotson added a single tally.
Cutter Gauthier closed out the scoring during the first period for Team USA.
Team USA completed the comeback with a pair of early second period goals from Rutger McGroarty and Gauthier to tie the game 3-3.
Both teams exchanged a pair of goals as the Lumberjacks regained the lead at 5-3 with goals from Jake Richard and Quinn Hutson.
Team USA tied the contest at 5-5 as Gauthier completed the three-goal hat trick and Isaac Howard tied the game just past the halfway point of the contest.
The Lumberjacks closed out the second period scoring with a goal from Jacob Braccini to give Muskegon a 6-5 advantage heading into the third period.
Hutson increased the Lumberjacks lead to 7-5 during the third period, but Team USA responded with three unanswered goals to take an 8-7 lead.
McGroarty, Devin Kaplan and Cole Spicer each scored for Team USA during the third stanza.
The Lumberjacks forced overtime, scoring the game-tying goal late in the contest from Ben Strinden.
Both teams failed to score during the five-minute overtime period, forcing a three-round shootout.
Howard scored the lone goal in the shootout for Team USA.
Team USA outshot the Lumberjacks by a 38-27 margin.
Muskegon went 2-for-3 on the power play, while killing 4-of-5 Team USA man advantages.
Aleksander Kuleshov started in goal, allowing three goals on 14 shots before backup goaltender Cameron Korpi entered the game in relief early in the second period.
Korpi stopped 18-of-23 shots on net.