The piles of snow next to the nets behind Peter Delmas and Marc-Andre Sauve were a bit higher than usual Tuesday morning as the Lewiston Maineiacs skated off the ice.
“We did a lot of things, we wanted to be ready for (today),” Maineiacs head coach Clem Jodoin said. “We worked on a lot of different things. It was a good, hard practice.”
Jodoin put the emphasis on “hard.”
The Maineiacs have won once in their previous six games, though three of those losses came in either overtime or a shootout.
The remedy, Jodoin said simply, is work. Hard work.
“Everything has to be harder now,” Jodoin said. “You have to work harder, you have to skater harder, pass harder and shoot harder. You have to battle harder. You can’t go through the motions, because we’re still in first place, and everybody is after us.”
The Maineiacs are hoping a little home cooking will also be part of a remedy. Lewiston plays seven of its next nine games at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee, starting with tonight’s tilt against the Saint John Sea Dogs.
Lewiston welcomes Acadie-Bathurst to town Friday and Saturday nights, and will make the short trip to Saint John next Wednesday, before hosting Drummondville, Cape Breton and Halifax in succession.
Jodoin said that while the team’s recent woes have him concerned, the adversity may help the team.
“We’re going through some rough times right now, but sometimes, this can help build your character as a team,” Jodoin said. “How we come through the adversity is important.”
The injuries that have sidelined Jonathan Bernier (ankle) and Marc-Andre Cliche (back, jaw) have healed, but not well enough for either to play in today’s game. Both are still day-to-day, and may play this weekend against the Titan.
In Cliche’s place, Jakub Bundil has settled in on the wing beside Eric Castonguay and Pierre-Luc Faubert.
“I didn’t want to upset the chemistry on the other lines,” Jodoin said. “Tutalo, Courcelles and Perron are working good together right now. Giliati, Chaput and Daneau, too. I tried everyone on the fourth line there, and Bundil, he worked the best.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.