LEWISTON – The Lewiston Maineiacs have a chance to prevent history from happening tonight at 7:30, but it might take a superhuman effort by a skeleton crew and a rookie netminder to do it.
The Rimouski Oceanic have run off 25 straight games without a loss, and are threatening the QMJHL record of 27. The Oceanic are flying high, having scored 18 goals in their last two games.
“You don’t slow Rimouski down, I think you have to contain them,” said Maineiacs assistant coach Ed Harding. “We’ve had some great games with Rimouski, and we’ve kept them down in shots and we’ve kept them in check. There have been a couple of times where they got up five or six goals, but you have to play them to a 3-2 or 4-3 game.”
To do that, the Maineiacs hope to bottle up Rimouski in its own end.
“If you make them play in their own zone, they’re not very good at it,” said Harding. “They don’t want to do it, and they get frustrated, and that’s what we need to do is frustrate them. I don’t know about some of the other coaches in this league, if they want to try to play run-and-gun with them, but you can’t do that.
“They’re that powerful. You have to exploit their weaknesses. I think that defensively, they’re more offensive at that position than defensive. If we can be patient and cycle, and get that puck down below their goal line and not just throw blind passes out, we’ll be successful. If you throw those blind passes out, all you are doing is feeding their transition.”
The Maineiacs have a line of their own that most coaches are quick to rank right behind the Crosby-Roussin-Pouliot front in terms of potency. Alexandre Picard now has 40 goals on the season and 84 total points, while Alex Bourret also has 84 points and leads the team in assists with 54. The third member of that line, Mathieu Aubin, has 45 points in just 48 games.
“I told the guys we’re going into Rimouski to win this game,” said Harding. “They way we look at it right now is that we need to go 2-and-1 and Cape Breton needs to go 1-and-2. If that happens, we’ll get home-ice advantage. We were looking for 74 points, and that would give us 74. With 10 games to go we thought that would be the case. If Cape Breton goes 2-and-1, we have to go 3-and-0. This team is capable of going 3-and-0 in the next three games.”
Cape Breton played Halifax Tuesday, and will finish the season with games against Moncton and Halifax.
Also a factor in this week’s matchups might be a recovering Chad Denny.
“We’re getting healthier,” said Harding. “You’re going to see Chad Denny play six to eight minutes, with some power-play time, and that’s a big advantage for us because of his shot, obviously. And then hopefully Friday he’ll be playing a regular shift if all goes well between now and then.”
And in net? Lewiston believes it has the edge there, too.
“Obviously we have the goaltending,” said Harding. “You put Jaroslav (Halak) in there or Jonathan (Bernier), you feel pretty secure. Jonathan is playing against Rimouski, and then Jaroslav Friday and against Victo(riaville) here to get ready for the playoffs. Jaroslav is our guy right now, Jonathan knows that and he’ll start the playoffs and we’ll take it from there.”
After Rimouski, the Maineiacs will travel to Drummondville for a Friday night showdown with the Voltigeurs, who also have aspirations of home-ice advantage, but will need some help getting there. The Maineiacs conclude the regular season at home Sunday against Victoriaville, which is battling for the 13th and final playoff position.
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