By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Saturday night’s Lewiston Maineiacs’ game against the PEI Rocket had “trap” written all over it for a variety of reasons.

For one, the Rocket were in 13th place, the final playoff position, and had lost six of seven. The Maineiacs, meanwhile, were playing with a full roster (as full as it will be for the remainder of the season with Marc-Andre Cliche and Olivier Legault out) and playing at home, where they have lost just eight times this season.

The other “trap” came on the ice, as in the trap defense that PEI played, sending no forecheckers and playing a base 1-3-1 in the neutral zone.

Lewiston didn’t fall for either one, getting goals from Alexandre Picard, Maxime Mathieu, Eric Castonguay and Colby Gilbert to pull out a 4-1 win over the Rocket in front of 3,069 fans at the Colisee.

“Overall, I think the team played well tonight,” said Maineiacs coach Clem Jodoin, who also expressed surprise at PEI coach Alain Vigneault’s early-game trap tactics.

“I was surprised to see (the trap),” Jodoin continued. “I had to make some adjustments in the first period, and again between the first and second, to change the game plan a little bit.”

The crowd started to murmur when Jodoin took his team’s only timeout less than five minutes into the game, and Vigneault also began barking instructions to his players after seeing what Jodoin came up with.

“For me, Lewiston is one of the best teams in the league,” said Vigneault. “They have one of the best lines in the league if not the best without Crosby, and they have four solid defensemen that move the puck well. I knew the only chance we had to win was to keep the game close, and we did that.”

Using the trap to frustrate the Maineiacs’ forwards in the neutral zone, PEI did keep the game close into the third period. In fact, Lewiston had its third consecutive two-goal lead in the third period Friday, and the Rocket used a Tyler Hawes tally on a wrister at 7:29 of the final period to pull to within one.

“When it was 2-1, after that we had the opportunity to make it 2-2 a couple of times,” said Vigneault. “The difference tonight, though, was his top players on defense.”

The defense and goaltender Jonathan Bernier, who stopped two point-blank shots, including a Kevin Hamel breakaway at 8:30, and several more close shots as the minutes ticked down.

“I knew I had to stop that (breakaway),” said Bernier. “I saw him coming and just said to myself I need to stop it.”

Castonguay relieved some of the pressure on Bernier at 15:20 of the third when he fired a wrister past PEI netminder Jean-Francois Bernard on a feed from the left corner by Ryan Murphy.

Colby Gilbert iced the game with an empty-netter on a pass from Chad Denny at 18:41.

Lewiston finally broke through the PEI trap late in the first when Picard tipped the puck past Bernard on a rifle from the point by Denny.

The Maineiacs made it 2-0 in the second when Mathieu took a chip pass from Gilbert up the right boards and cut to the net, getting a wrister off on Bernard.

“The puck hit the goalie and just came right back to the blade of my stick,” said Mathieu. “I got it again and put it between his arm and the post.”

The win lifts Lewiston to 26-20-7 through 53 games, keeping the team in seventh place, still five points back of Quebec with a game in hand, and still two points ahead of Rouyn-Noranda, which leapfrogged Gatineau by beating the Olympiques 3-0 Saturday.

Lewiston next plays Wednesday at the Colisee against the Halifax Mooseheads.