PORTLAND – Lewiston High School sophomore Matt Letourneau picked a good time – perhaps the perfect time – to start listening closely to his coaches.
“I told him after the game, I said, You finally caught a pass and it stayed on your stick, and you were able to pick a spot instead of hitting the goalie in the chest,'” kidded Lewiston coach Norm Gagne. “For him, this is his first big one.”
Somehow, Letourneau mustered enough strength from his wilting frame to power a wrist shot past Brunswick sophomore Matt Pellerin at 6:44 of the fifth overtime to lift his Blue Devils to a 2-1 win over the Brunswick Dragons at the Cumberland County Civic Center on long Tuesday night.
“They wheeled the puck like we’d worked on, (Lewiston wing Jonathan Roy) got it behind the net and everyone collapsed on him,” said Letourneau. “He gave me the pass, it was right on my tape. We’d been talking to go to the goalie’s glove side, so I picked there. By far, this is the biggest goal of my life.”
The game, which lasted a total of 83 minutes and 44 seconds, is the longest recorded game in Maine high school hockey history.
Roy, who also assisted on Lewiston’s first goal back in the second period, had the helper on Letourneau’s goal, too, after a cycling feed from Casey Poussard in the left corner.
“I knew they were all going to cover me with the puck,” said Roy. “When I got the puck where I was, I threw it out front.”
Blaine Cardalli, who was snakebitten for most of the evening, had a chance to end the game just five seconds into the first overtime, but Lewiston netminder Brian Nason came up with one of his 40 saves to stuff a breakaway after defenseman Nate Parker lost the puck in his skates.
In a true goaltender’s duel, Nason and Pellerin matched each other save for save through the first three full periods, and in each of the first four eight-minute and sudden-death periods as well.
“We’ve only given up two goals in the playoffs so far,” said Gagne. “(Nason) has been just outstanding.”
“If (Pellerin) hadn’t made a name for himself by now, he certainly did that tonight,” said Brunswick coach Mike Routhier. “He’s a top-notch kid, and you’ll hear more from him.”
Both teams’ vaunted penalty-killing units played as advertised, too, with the Blue Devils shutting down Brunswick’s otherwise deadly power play all game, including twice in overtime.
“The execution just wasn’t there, and (Nason) made some big, big saves,” said Routhier. “Sometimes the best penalty-killer is the goalie.”
Lewiston’s power-play unit didn’t look much better Tuesday than it had against Bangor, but it did manage one goal, a Travis Lebrun tally at 13:39 of the second period that evened the score at one.
“I was trying to get it in there for the rebound,” said Lebrun. “I didn’t even know it had gone in right away.”
Neither team managed much offense in the first period, though both had chances on the power play. The Blue Devils’ power play never even got a shot off on two chances, while Nason stymied the Dragons’ efforts three times.
In the second, the parade of players to the penalty box began in earnest. By the halfway mark of the second frame, both teams had successfully killed off a 5-on-3 advantage.
Brunswick got on the scoreboard first, converting on a rare-5-on-5 opportunity at 10:02. Giacomo Medaglia snuck the puck five-hole on Nason on a quick feed from Josh Aldred while a Lewiston defender tried unsuccessfully to hook his stick.
“There was a turnover in the zone, and the guy was right there,” said Nason. “I went down in my butterfly, but I was like a millionth of a second too late on it, and it beat me.”
Lewiston got a second opportunity with a two-skater advantage at 12:41, and this time made the Dragons pay with Lebrun’s strike.
Neither team did much in the third, though Toby Poirier and Lebrun nearly won the game for the Blue Devils with five seconds to play on a broken 2-on-1. Poirier’s shot popped out to the left and Lebrun fanned on a bouncing rebound.
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