Ryan Mior stops 24 shots as the Maineiacs are blanked.
By Justin Pelletier
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Neither team in Friday’s hockey game at the Central Maine Civic Center has been very generous to teams looking to put shots on net this season.

Lewiston entered the game allowing the second-fewest shots on goal against in the entire league, second only to Friday’s opponent, the Prince Edward Island Rocket.

P.E.I. won the war of attrition.

Cory Urquhart scored two third period goals, including one while his team was shorthanded, to lead the Rocket to a 3-0 win over the Maineiacs in front of 2,183 fans.

The Rocket fired just 20 shots on Lewiston netminder Brandon Verge, while the Maineiacs managed 24 at P.E.I’s Ryan Mior.

“We knew coming in that this would be a tough game in the shots department,” said Rocket coach Alain Vigneault. “The key to winning tonight was to take advantage of our chances when we had them, because we knew we weren’t going to get many.”

The Maineiacs managed a few chances of their own, particularly while on the power play or in the time immediately thereafter, but every chance they did get, Mior smothered the puck.

“Like at the beginning of the year, we had some good scoring chances and we couldn’t hit the net,” said Maineiacs’ coach Mario Durocher. “I was pleased overall with how hard we played tonight, but P.E.I, they play a good solid trap and they have that experience. The game, though, was just like in last year’s playoffs, like a chess match. This time, though, they have more experience.”

The Rocket got on the board first at 11:59 of the first period when Tyler Hawes banged home a rebound in front of Verge on a shot from an odd angle in the left corner by Fabien Laniel. From there, the Maineiacs played even, and may have even stolen the edge in offensive zone attack time.

Despite the lack of goal scoring in the second frame, there was plenty of action thanks to Nick Cowan and Sheldon Wenzel. Cowen and Rocket forward Jean-Francois Roux sparred at 5:30 of the period, getting the crowd back into the game, and then Wenzel and Jimmy Bonneau of P.E.I. went after each other at the 7:48 mark. That last fight resulted in both Wenzel and Bonneau being ejected from the game, and Bonneau picked up an extra 10 minutes for a misconduct penalty.

In the third, with the Maineiacs on the power play, Urquhart picked off a pass at the Maineiacs’ blue line and rifled a slap shot off of a lunging defender’s stick and past Verge for the goal.

“That second goal killed us,” said Durocher. “We were all trying to do too much by ourselves and no one was passing the puck. When we do that, we’ll turn the puck over.”

Urquhart capped the scoring with 2:43 to play in the game when he converted a one-timer from nearly the same spot on a pass from behind the net by Michal Lambert.

The Maineiacs return to the ice tonight as they take on divisional rival Chicoutimi. The Saguenéens are coming off of a 1-1 tie with Québec on Friday night.

NOTES: Fans may have noticed a new face on the bench on Friday night, and he was wearing goaltender’s pads.

D.J. DelBuono, who plays regularly with the Junior Lock Monsters in Lowell, Mass. was spelling the injured Matt Davis. Davis has a back injury that will keep him out for an undetermined period of time…Alexandre Picard was playing his second game in as many nights after playing for the QMJHL All-Star team against a Russian Select team on Thursday. Corey Urquhart and Michal Lambert of P.E.I were also in that game. The two Rocket players flew in today, and Maineiacs’ coach Mario Durocher actually picked them up at the airport.

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