LEWISTON – The Lewiston Maineiacs are going to be seeing Cape Breton netminder Ondrej Pavelec in their sleep for the next week, and that will only make their franchise-record-tying fifth consecutive loss seem that much worse.
Pavelec allowed Lewiston just two power play goals while stopping 42 shots to lead the Screaming Eagles to a 3-2 win in front of 2,474 at the Colisee on Saturday.
The win is the Eagles’ eighth straight and the fifth consecutive road win, both of which are new team records. The loss for Lewiston, meanwhile, matches the team’s five-game skid from Oct. 10-19, 2003.
In the Eagles’ locker room, relief reigned.
“We really needed a strong performance from Pavelec,” said Cape Breton coach Pascal Vincent. “The first one, it was a bad goal, but the rest of the game he stood up for us big time. To be honest with you, we feel lucky to get two points here.”
Lewiston had a scoring chance with less than 15 seconds to play in the game when Eric Castonguay took a feed in front of the net from Mathieu Aubin. Castonguay aimed for the top left corner, but the puck sailed wide.
“I dipped my shoulder and tried to make him move,” said Castonguay. “I had the hole there, but I missed the net.”
The lack of a finishing touch for the second consecutive game at home had fans murmuring as they left the arena. In the locker room, it puzzled the coaches, too.
“Right now, it’s a good question,” said assistant coach Jeff Guay. “We’re trying to buy some goals. With that goalie in there tonight, it was very difficult. I think you could have put any other goaltender throughout the league so far, I think we probably would have had more goals. We need to find some goal scorers.”
Lewiston (5-6-0-3) shot out of the gate and surprised the Eagles and Pavelec both by taking a 1-0 lead at 1:40 of the opening frame. Given room up the left side with Lewiston on the power play, defenseman Jonathan Paiement into the top right corner of the net.
“He’s very strong mentally,” Vincent said of Pavelec. “He made a mistake, but hey, so many times during the season he’s saved the game. He came back strong, though, and that was important.”
Cape Breton (10-7-0-0) knotted the score at 15:04 of the first after Michal Korenko coughed the puck in his own zone. Two passes later, Jean-Claude Sawyer roofed the puck over Lewiston netminder Jonathan Bernier’s right shoulder.
The Eagles took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission thanks to a backhand wraparound by Vladimir Kubus that popped in over Bernier’s left shoulder.
“If you look at where those goals were scored, they weren’t dangerous shots in my mind,” said Guay. “Was Jonathan Bernier fighting the puck a little bit tonight? I think he was. Normally, Jonathan Bernier would have stopped all three of those. Seventy games, it’s a long season and he’s going to have those games.”
After a sluggish second period during which neither team seemed able to get out of their own way, Castonguay breathed life into the team and the building with a nice finish on a 5-on-3 power play to knot the score going into the second intermission.
Francois Gauthier potted the winner at 2:14 of the third, and Pavelec took over from there, stopping 13 Lewiston offerings to preserve the win. In two games against Lewiston, Pavelec stopped 75 of 78 shots.
“He deserved that win,” said Guay. “He stood on his head tonight. He saw the puck. We created some traffic and he still got them.”
Lewiston next plays Friday at the Colisee against the division-leading Acadie-Bathurst Titan, and follows that game up with a contest against the Moncton Wildcats on Sunday, Oct. 30.
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