LEWISTON – For the first time in more than two weeks, fans at the Colisee had white knuckles following a Lewiston Maineiacs game, so-colored because they spent the better part of the game clenching the blue wooden chairs beneath them.

With less than two minutes to play in overtime, a wavering puck just barely found the space between Lewiston Maineiacs goaltender Jonathan Bernier’s pads. Bernier caught enough of it to slow it down, but the puck continued to crawl behind Bernier, inching toward the six-foot red plane.

Bernier recovered long enough to spin and knock the puck away, thwarting the Rocket’s 46th attempt to push a puck into the Lewiston net.

Bernier stopped 44 Rocket shots and Brandon Roach and Ryan Murphy each had a goal and an assist as the Maineiacs skated to a 2-2 tie with Prince Edward Island on Wednesday.

“It’s great hockey to see when everybody shows up to play,” said Maineiacs coach Clem Jodoin. “The energy, the intensity were up. It was a solid, very, very solid effort by this team tonight.”

The solid effort was marred a bit by yet another injury, as first-line center Mathieu Aubin took a flying check from Tyler Hawes behind the PEI net and crumbled to the ice. Later, Jodoin said that Aubin suffered a shoulder injury and would miss an extended amount of time.

Already down five players, Lewiston’s defense, and particularly Roach and Travis Mealy, skated the better part of the game.

“That was a tough game,” said Roach. “We had to stick to the game plan. We only had five defensemen tonight and the forwards did a great job coming back to support us.”

Following the hit on Aubin, the Maineiacs ratcheted up the pressure. Down 1-0, they tied the game one minute later.

“We had a lot of momentum on that shift,” said Roach. “It was a good faceoff win by (Ryan) Murphy and (Sheldon) Wenzel was able to get it back to me. He went right at the net and I just fired a shot.”

The shot flew past PEI netminder Ryan Mior’s glove and into the top right corner of the net, knotting the score at one.

“If you have fear, you will never win a game,” said Jodoin. “We faced a challenge tonight, with missing players, and we rose to that challenge, especially down by a goal.”

After a feisty rest of the second period, which saw three fights and two power plays for each team, the shots were even at 20 each.

Enter Bernier.

Murphy was credited with a goal that Roach fired from the right point after the puck glanced off of Murphy’s skate and past Mior for a 2-1 lead.

“It looked like a set play, really,” said Murphy. “I won the faceoff to Wenzel, who got it to the point. (Travis) Mealy passed it to Roach who saw me cutting across the middle after wheeling around and he fired.”

After that goal, Bernier became the target end of a PEI shooting gallery. In all, PEI launched 26 shots at the rookie goaltender in the third period and overtime, and just one snuck by him.

“Their goaltender played outstanding,” said Rocket coach Alain Vigneault. “We outplayed them, I think, but he kept us off the board.”

Both teams clanged shots off the post all game. Colby Gilbert just missed his first career goal in the third when his backhand flip caught the crossbar, and Eric Castonguay rang the iron with a slapshot in the second.

It looked like the start of another very long night for the Maineiacs, something to which the Colisee crowd has grown accustomed in recent weeks, when Viatcheslav Trukhno pounded a rebound into a wide open net after a Dominic Soucy wrister from the middle of the slot temporarily stymied Bernier.

After that, though, depleted Maineiacs defense (Maxime Brunet never showed as scheduled on Wednesday) hung tough, steering most of the Rocket’s chances wide.

Still missing in the opening frame was a steady Lewiston offensive zone attack, with several unfamiliar line combinations seeing nearly equal ice time.

Gilbert, Derek Bailey and Marc-Andre Daneau had one opportunity early in the frame, registering two of the team’s nine first-period shots on one shift.

Castonguay, Pierre-Luc Champagne and Wenzel, who whipped the crowd into a frenzy with a lengthy fight at 11:17 of the first, also had a few offensive chances, but Mior was equal to the task.

Lewiston will plays its next game, Friday night against Quebec, on the road, before returning home for two more games on Sunday and Tuesday.