Highly-touted prospect Sidney Crosby and Rimouski face Lewiston tonight.
LEWISTON – The Lewiston Maineiacs’ publicity team has been hyping Friday’s game against Rimouski for weeks, and in particular 16-year-old Sidney Crosby.
For the team itself, however, Crosby and company are much more than a one-dimensional team, and the Océanic are much better than the 10-4 score last Sunday might indicate.
“I think we have to be careful,” said coach Mario Durocher. “We can’t keep thinking about how we scored 10 goals on Sunday, and we have to know that we won’t do that again on Friday.”
In part, Rimouski, against whom the Maineiacs have two wins this season, will be better prepared, having had four days off since losing to Lewiston on Sunday. Meanwhile, Lewiston had to battle Cape Breton on Wednesday.
“This is almost like a playoff schedule already,” said Durocher. “I’m looking forward to next week where we have some time off to prepare. For now, the practices have been just an hour or so this week, just so the players can keep the feel of the ice under them.”
Crosby is the main focus on the Rimouski team, but isn’t its only weapon. This season, Rimouski coach Donald Dufresne has three solid lines built around several talented forwards.
Playing with Crosby this year, Dany Roussin has tallied 14 goals and 21 assists in 19 games, to go with Crosby’s 45 points in 21 games.
On the second line, Marc-Antoine Pouliot has produced 24 points in just 16 games, and leads a potent scoring punch of his own.
“We cannot concentrate just on one player or one line,” said Durocher. “They will burn us if we do that. The biggest thing for us to do is to stay out of the box. Their power play, as you can probably imagine, is really good, and we need to avoid that situation.”
On Sunday, the Maineiacs managed to draw 13 power play chances against the Océanic, and scored four times.
“If we stay disciplined, we will be O.K,” said Durocher. “We can’t take any stupid penalties.”
As for the Maineiacs’ offense, the key to scoring ten goals against Rimouski on Sunday was beating the Océanic to the puck in transition, and using forward speed to blow by a talented but young defensive corps.
“We need to continue to create the 3-on-2 breaks through the neutral zone,” said Durocher. “That is how we did well against them last time. We have to be careful, though. We beat them twice in their place, so I know they will be hungry to beat us here at home.”
Faceoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at the Central Maine Civic Center, and according to team officials, plenty of good seats remain for both Friday’s game and Sunday’s rematch with Halifax.
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