By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Home is becoming a lot friendlier for the Lewiston Maineiacs.

After shaking off some rust from a season-long eight day layoff, Lewiston got four goals from four different skaters and stellar goaltending from Jonathan Bernier to post a 4-1 win over visiting P.E.I. Rocket in front of 2,902 at the Colisee.

The win lifts the Maineiacs’ record to 22-17-1-5. At 50 points, the Maineiacs sit seven back of Halifax for fourth in the Eastern Division with one game in hand, and also 11 points ahead of St. John’s, which also won Sunday.

“It was nice to be back home,” said Maineiacs assistant coach Jeff Guay. “We were home for a while, had the week off, almost like a college week. It seemed like it was a long time for Sunday to get here, but it’s nice to get back out here and win on home ice.”

Lewiston now has taken at least one point in seven straight home games after starting the season with eight straight home losses. Two of those losses came in shootouts.

Two of the Maineiacs’ four goals Sunday came with an extra skater, and a third came just as a power play expired. The team’s numbers on the power play have been solid since a rough start and have rebounded to 20.9 percent, good for seventh in the league.

“Before the game, we saw some clips on the power play,” said Maineiacs forward Eric Castonguay. “We had to move the puck because their D’ don’t have good speed. We just moved the puck well.”

Castonguay had the first Lewiston goal at 17:35 of the first period when he snuck in back door at the right post on the power play, taking a feed from Mathieu Aubin and pounding home the feed for his 16th of the year.

“Aubin made a great pass,” said Castonguay. “I think the goalie saw (Maineiacs defenseman Jonathan) Paiement and he cheated a little bit, but I don’t think he saw me behind him, and Aubin found me with the pass.”

Castonguay returned the favor in the second period, setting up Aubin in the left circle less than 20 seconds after a P.E.I. penalty had expired to put the Maineiacs ahead 2-0. Here though, the Rocket seemed to take over the momentum, testing Bernier.

“We had a bad first period, but we came back strong in the second,” said P.E.I. coach Yanick Jean. “We played alright in the third, too, but Bernier made some huge, huge stops.”

Trukhno had the Rocket’s best chance of the game at 5:15 of the middle frame when he picked off a Marc-Andre Cliche pass mid-air and went in alone on the 17-year-old Lewiston netminder. Bernier snagged the shot with his glove, though, and kept the game scoreless.

“It’s a different game (if Trukhno scores),” said Jean. “We hit a couple posts down low on the power play, but we just didn’t put them home.”

Paiement made it 3-0 at 6:13 of the third, again a power play marker. This time, Paiement crept in from the right point to the middle of the slot and fired a wrist shot low to P.E.I. netminder Antoine Lafleur’s glove side.

Bernier lost his shutout at 18:24 of the final stanza when Michal Korenko banked the puck into his own net off a leg in front. Marc-Andre Daneau scored from center ice into an empty net with 46 seconds to play to finish the scoring.

Notes: Paiement skated onto the ice Sunday wearing an A’ on his jersey for the first time this season. “When I came in at the beginning of the season, the assistant was Olivier (Legault) and I told the coaches I didn’t want an A’ or C’ because everybody chose already,” said Paiement. “After Legault was gone, I asked if I could have an A’ and they decided I had shown leadership so I have one now.” … Captain Brandon Roach was a healthy scratch Sunday due to what team officials called “a violation of team rules.” He may or may not be in the lineup against St. John’s on Wednesday night.