LEWISTON – Lewiston Maineiacs’ captain Marc-Andre Cliche isn’t one to speak up and berate his team for playing poorly, nor is he one to speak up in praise.

But his actions apparently do have the same effect.

“I saw Cliche work so hard to score his goal,” Maineiacs’ forward David Perron said. “I knew I needed to go out there and work as hard as he did, and it worked.”

Perron scored Lewiston’s second goal 2:13 after Cliche scored the team’s first to even the score early in the second. That goal keyed a momentum shift and helped push the Maineiacs to a critical 4-2 victory over the Drummondville Voltigeurs in front of 3,105 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Saturday.

“This was a really important win for us, knowing who we have to play (today),” Maineiacs’ forward Eric Castonguay said.

The win gives Lewiston 80 points in an increasingly tight Eastern Division. Cape Breton won again Saturday night and now sits four points back of the Maineiacs.

“Every game is that much more important,” Maineiacs’ coach Clem Jodoin said. “(Today’s) game is the biggest of the year so far.”

And Jodoin called his team’s performance a better-than-average tuneup for this afternoon’s tilt.

“We played a smart hockey game for most of the game,” Jodoin said. “Our game, we win as a team. We rely on teamwork to win games, and that has to be there.”

Jonathan Duchesneau put the Voltigeurs ahead at 17:33 of a nondescript first period with a rebound goal from Delmas’ left side.

“Even though we were down, I knew we’d have a good chance to win because of the way we were playing,” Jodoin said.

The Volts went ahead 1:37 into the second period on another power play goal, this time on a 5-on-3. Drew Paris played pass at the point with Etienne Martin, skated to the top of the slot and fired a wrist shot through the gathering crowd in front of the Lewiston net. The puck sailed into the lower left corner of the net.

The Maineiacs righted the ship in quick order.

Cliche scored his first goal at home since being sidelined with an injury on a tremendous individual effort among three Drummondville players. Cliche outmuscled all three and flipped the puck past a confused Pier-Olivier Pelletier.

Perron reached the 60-point plateau at 4:33 of the second when he tipped a Marc-Andre Crete shot past Pelletier to knot the score at two.

After the early flurry, neither team managed much in the second half of the period, the teams ventured into the third period knotted at two. There, the Volts lost power.

“We took a long time getting here, and we were even talking on the bench in the second period how we just lost our energy,” Drummondville coach Guy Boucher said. “We had nothing left in the tank.”

The Maineiacs took full advantage and started cycling better inside the Voltigeurs’ zone. David Taylor notched his seventh of the year on a pretty pass from Danick Hudon-Paquette at 6:51 of the period, and Castonguay shut the door with a wrister at 9:20.

Peter Delmas again stayed solid in the net for Lewiston, especially as Drummondville attacked on a 5-on-3 late in the third. He stopped 24 of 26 shots to earn his 12th win of the season in his 20th game.

Lewiston squares off against the Screaming Eagles this afternoon at 4 p.m.

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