LEWISTON – The Lewiston Maineiacs have just two losses on their record since Christmas, and both have come against rival Baie-Comeau. The latest setback was a tight 4-3 game at the Colisee at the tail end of a double-header last Saturday and, by a quirk in scheduling, the team will again face the Drakkar tonight on the road, their third meeting in one week.
“You play a team and you lose to them you want to get right back at them, so that’s a good thing,” said assistant coach Ed Harding. “I think that’ll be something for our guys to rally around. We should have some respect for Baie-Comeau. They played us fantastic up there and they played us hard here. I think we gave them the game on Saturday night. We didn’t play real intelligent, we didn’t do some of the little things, like faceoffs. We were terrible on faceoffs – in zone, center zone, offensive zone – it didn’t matter.”
Again, though, the Maineiacs will take off shorthanded. Marc-Andre Cliche re-aggravated a shoulder injury when he landed funny after a hip check in the loss to Baie-Comeau, Olivier Legault is still out with a broken jaw and Bobby Gates is a game-time decision all weekend.
“It’s going to be a matter of comfort,” said Harding. “I was told (Gates) can’t hurt (his shoulder) anymore, so it’s now a matter of pain tolerance. Hopefully he’s ready to go on Saturday on that big ice surface. We really could use his speed.”
Cliche, meanwhile, left early on Thursday with head coach Clem Jodoin to get a second opinion on his injury in Canada.
“Anybody that landed the way he did would have been hurt,” said Harding. “It’s just unfortunate that he landed on the same shoulder.”
And new to the injured list is Sheldon Wenzel. Wenzel became the Maineiacs eighth “shoulder casualty” of the season in practice Wednesday after taking a spill in front of the net.
All of the injuries have put a wrench in the coaching staff’s line combinations.
“I don’t know if it’s any secret or not, but we were looking at coming down the stretch with playing (Mathieu) Aubin and Cliche together, and we haven’t been able to do that,” said Harding. “They’re pretty much best of friends, they like playing with each other, and that gives us (Alexandre) Picard and (Alex) Bourret staying together and Cliche and Aubin, that gives us some scoring depth, but again, you know, that’s hockey. We have guys that have filled in all year long that have filled in and you know what? They’re going to have to do it again.”
And Baie-Comeau, despite being mired near the bottom of the league standings, is still clamoring for a playoff spot..
“Even Bathurst is creeping up now,” said Harding. “(Former Maineiacs coach) Mario (Durocher) has the boys up there playing well and it’s going to be tight even for that last spot. It’s going to be tight with us, too. I’d like to sneak into fourth, fifth or sixth spot and definitely get home-ice advantage, so we need to put together another little mini winning streak. For now though, we need to worry about Friday night’s game. We’ll worry about Saturday that day, but we need to worry about Baie-Comeau first.”
After today’s game at Baie-Comeau, the team heads to Chicoutimi for a 4 p.m. matinee on Saturday. The Maineiacs return to home ice on Tuesday to face Quebec.
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