LEWISTON – Even the fans that wouldn’t be categorized as “die-hard” knew going into Sunday afternoon’s matchup with Moncton that the Lewiston Maineiacs had a recent penchant for blowing two-goal leads.
With 20 minutes to play Sunday, fans at the Colisee dug in again, with the team ahead 2-0. Those that clenched their chairs too hard may still be sitting there.
Alexandre Picard and Alex Bourret combined for three goals in the first eight minutes of the third period to put the Moncton Wildcats away, leading the Maineiacs to a 5-0 win in front of 3,048 fans.
“The difference was in the execution,” said Maineiacs coach Clem Jodoin. “The execution was there tonight. The new additions did well for us, and the veterans, Roach, Paiement and especially Halak, had great games.”
Halak stopped all 30 shots he faced to record the shutout, his fourth of the season.
“A shutout is a shutout, it doesn’t matter where it is, at home or away,” said Jodoin. “In junior hockey, this is a big think for a goalie.”
Halak’s counterpart at the other end of the ice, Corey Crawford, had a rougher-than-normal night, allowing five goals on 34 shots.
“He’s been playing a lot of games,” said Moncton coach Daniel Lacroix. “He’s been extremely sharp in those games so far, so this was not normal. On the other hand, I don’t think we helped him see the puck at all, either.”
With the Maineiacs sitting on a precarious 2-0 lead, Picard tipped home a Brandon Roach blast from the left point with Lewiston on a 5-on-3 power play to extend the lead to 3-0 just 53 seconds into the final frame.
“For us to kill that 5-on-3, that was the key to the game,” said Lacroix. “It’s a whole new game if we get through that.”
Bourret, meanwhile, who played less than half of the game because of a nagging injury and because of a fight in the second period, beat Crawford low to the glove side less than two minutes later, and added a second goal when he picked off a Moncton pass and beat Crawford on a breakaway at the eight-minute mark.
“After the second period, usually we talk to the guys about making sure we play defensively with the lead, but tonight we said nothing,” said Jodoin. “We just told them to keep playing the way they were playing, but that is all.”
Lewiston jumped on the Wildcats early, and Jonathan Paiement scored his third goal in as many games on the power play with 4:28 to play in the first.
“From the get-go, they were the better team tonight,” said Daniel Lacroix. “We knew we couldn’t out-gun them early, and then in the first, with all the PK’s (penalty kills), we couldn’t gain any momentum.”
Ryan Murphy scored his 10th goal of the season in the second on what started out as a harmless play. Newcomer Stefan Chaput fell down near the Moncton bench and shoveled the puck up the boards to Nick Cowan. Cowan tried to put a move on the defender, but almost got knocked to the ice. As he stumbled, he slid the puck across the blue line to Murphy, who took three strides and let a weak wrister go toward the low glove side on Crawford, beating the startled goaltender.
Lewiston plays its next three games on the road – at Acadie-Bathurst, at Cape Breton and at Quebec. Lewiston next plays on home ice Friday, March 11 against Quebec.
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