LEWISTON – The playoff run has now officially started, and the Maineiacs left no question in which direction they’re headed.

Alexandre Picard scored two goals in the second period and Matt Davis stopped 26 shots to post his third shutout of the season as Lewiston upended Cape Breton 2-0 in front of 2,085 fans at the Colisee.

The win gives the Maineiacs 64 points and they now trail Chicoutimi by just one for eighth place overall, with still a game in hand on the Sagueneens.

“That was a great hockey game,” Maineiacs coach Mario Durocher said. “It is like the playoffs have started for us now and it was important to get that win. Now, if we come out and lose (Thursday) this game is wasted, though, so we have to come back and play well again.”

Lewiston will skate against Acadie-Bathurst tonight at the Colisee.

On Wednesday, though, it was all about defense and goaltending, two crucial parts to a solid playoff team.

“I think we played very well on defense all night with the six players we had out there,” Durocher said. “They kept all of the shots to the outside.”

“They played well in front of me all night,” Davis added. “Last game, my downfall was letting up too many rebounds in front. Today, I worked to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Picard, meanwhile, was in the right place at the right time — twice. Both of those, according to Durocher, were by design.

“He played in front of the net well tonight,” Durocher said. “We came up with a plan to get shots in on net and try to go high on the goalie, and then crash the net with three forwards, and it worked twice.”

Halfway through the period, with the Maineiacs on their sixth power play of the game, Francis Trudel floated a wrist shot in on Martin Houle. The puck dropped halfway there and bounced in on net, hitting the Cape Breton keeper in the paddle of the stick. Picard was there for the rebound and stuffed it short side left for the 1-0 lead.

And he wasn’t done.

Exactly six minutes later, Picard took another rebound, this time off of a Bobby Gates snap shot from the high slot, and roofed it over Houle on the glove side, putting Lewiston up 2-0.

“He paid the price in front of the net, and he got the goals for it,” Durocher said.

There was no scoring in the first period, but plenty of action as both teams tried to establish a physical edge.

Forty-five seconds into the game, Sheldon Wenzel came flying from one end of the ice and leveled Cape Breton forward Marc-Andre Bernier well away from the puck. Wenzel was tossed with a major penalty and game misconduct, and Bernier was helped from the ice.

For the rest of the period, Cape Breton and Lewiston exchanged extra jabs. In all, there were six power plays, four for the Maineiacs, but no scoring.

Houle, back in net for Cape Breton after Marc-Andre Fleury started four in a row, made all 11 saves he needed to make in the opening frame, while Davis snagged all nine shots he faced as well.

The second period was all Lewiston, and in a big way.

Along with the two goals, the Maineiacs outshot the Screaming Eagles 24-4.

“We were dominant in that period, and then we were able to sit back in a 1-2-2 trap,” Durocher said.

Cape Breton never found its rhythm in the middle period, nor in the last, and was back on its heels most of the time. The four shots the Eagles did manage in the second were weak and from the perimeter, and Davis stopped them all, along with 13 more in the third.

jpelletier@sunjournal.com

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