LEWISTON – The gift wrap wasn’t exactly straight and the bow may have been a little crooked, but the Lewiston Maineiacs got the first half of their coaches’ Christmas present right Friday night despite nearly blowing a four-goal lead.

Alex Bourret scored three goals and added an assist, Alexandre Picard had a pair of each and Jonathan Bernier made 27 saves, including several key late-game stops on dangerous shots as Lewiston out-dueled the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies 6-4 in front of 2,540 fans at the Colisee.

“Anytime you can get two points in this league you’re happy,” said Maineiacs coach Ed Harding on behalf of the coaching staff. “We played extremely well in the first period. We got down one early, battled right back and got the next one quickly, and played well from there.”

The win lifts Lewiston to 15-16-6 with one game to play before the holiday break. The Huskies, meanwhile, are now two points behind the Maineiacs in the overall standings with four games in hand. Lewiston is now in 10th place overall, just two points back of P.E.I. for ninth.

“Smart and mature teams learn how to protect a two-goal lead,” said Harding.

Lewiston did itself one better Friday, building a four-goal lead in the middle frame, with Bourret leading the charge.

At 1:25 of the second, Bourret put home a Picard rebound at the tail end of a five-minute power play. Less than two minutes later, Ryan Murphy went nearly the length of the ice on a great individual effort to score his fourth of the season.

“Legault was on the half-boards and the puck went kind of by him,” said Murphy. “I poked the puck through the defenseman’s legs and went through the middle to their zone. I saw the top shelf and that’s where I went.”

In Tuesday’s game against Acadie-Bathurst, Murphy hit the crossbar on a similar play.

“I think I would have dies if I had done that again,” said Murphy.

After several minutes of chippy play and a handful of penalties to each team, Bourret notched his second of the night on a shorthanded hustle play that started with a Jonathan Paiement flip to the neutral zone. Rouyn-Noranda defenseman Jean-Philippe Cote was closer to the puck by at least 20 feet, but Bourret managed to catch up with him and the puck and shove both toward netminder Philippe Roberge. With one hand, Bourret smacked what would have been a solid groundstroke in tennis through Cote’s screen and past Roberge’s pads to put the home team ahead 4-1.

“I don’t really know about that one,” said Bourret. “I knew I had a chance I skated hard after it, and I just tried to get it toward the net.”

Picard upped the lead to 5-1 at 12:12 of the second, scoring that goal on replacement netminder Jean-Philippe Levasseur. It would prove to be an important goal.

“We had a terrible start to the second period,” said Huskies’ coach Andre Tourigny. “When you get down like that to a good team like Lewiston, you pay the price. We almost came all the way back. We seem to like overtime, this team.”

In 33 games this season, Rouyn-Noranda has gone into overtime a league-high 15 times and have 18 points via the extra session.

They nearly forced overtime with the Maineiacs for the third consecutive meeting this season on Friday when Yannick Tifu and Louis-Simon Allaire scored late in the second and Philippe Dupuis notched another at 6:24 of the third, closing the lead to 5-4.

“Their goalie made some great saves near the end,” said Tourigny. “He played very well under pressure.”

“When (Bernier) threw that pad out there at the end on their scoring chance, that was a great save,” said Harding. “He is very mature for a 16-year-old rookie, and in tight games like this one, this is how he will gain experience.”

Colby Gilbert, Maxime Mathieu and Derek Bailey also earned high praise from the coaching staff, holding the Huskies’ top guns to just 11 shots and one goal on the night.

Lewiston will play its final game before Christmas on Sunday afternoon at the Colisee against the Gatineau Olympiques. It is also the final game before the league’s trading period opens on Monday.