LEWISTON – Simon Courcelles has been here before, and with a little bit of help from his new friends, he’d like this ride to last as long as last year’s did.

On Saturday, it was the 20-year-old veteran’s turn to lift the Lewiston Maineiacs.

Courcelles finished a tic-tac-toe passing play with Stefano Giliati with a wrist shot high to the glove side of Kevin Maletto at 3:57 of the third period to put the Maineiacs ahead for good and lead Lewiston to a 4-3 victory over the Shawinigan Cataractes in Game 2 of the teams’ best-of-seven playoff series in front of 2,975 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“It was a great breakout pass. (Chad) Denny, at the right time, gave it to me, and I had a give-and-go with Giliati, and we created a two-on-one against the defenseman, and I was fortunate enough to put it in the corner,” Courcelles said.

Shawinigan threatened several times down the stretch, keeping the crowd anxious. In two games, Lewiston has outscored Shawinigan by a margin of 8-5, which has Cataractes’ skipper Eric Veilleux optimistic as the series heads back to Shawinigan.

“It could easily be 2-0 for us, but it’s not,” Veilleux said. “They did their job, they won two games at home. They lost just three games at home, they’re the best team, third in the country, they found ways to win both times and I tip my hat to them now. But we’re coming back in our barn, it’s going to be loud. It will be physical, it will be intense, we need to do out job at home.”

Sebastien Piche led Maineiacs’ goal-scorers with a pair of markers in the first period, and played a solid, physical defensive game all night.

“They have a couple guys with hockey skill, they have a couple of guys who can put the puck in the net,” Piche said. “We had to finish all the checks, and that’s something we all know, and we had to prepare for that.”

The first period more closely resembled the O.K. Corral than a traditional Maineiacs’ game, as the teams combined for five goals. The Cataractes had the better of it, too, and led 3-2.

Piche made his backhanded wrap-around look easy just 3:53 into the game to put the home team ahead 1-0, but the Cats clawed back on Cedric McNicoll’s first of two in the period.

Piche notched his second at 13:29, and McNicoll answered at 17:17 with a shorthanded goal on a feed from Danick Bouchard. Sean Smyth put the visitors ahead at 18:30.

“We didn’t put our heads down,” Piche said. “They worked pretty hard, so we had to play well defensively, block their shots.”

The Maineiacs played a more solid, physical game in the second period, and applied more pressure around Maletto, but it took a Chad Denny blast from the right point on a power play at 7:30 to even the score. For the rest of the period, despite the pressure, Lewiston couldn’t score.

“We proved we could play with them for three periods,” Veilleux said. “Really, for six periods now. Now, we will go back to our building, the fans there are crazy, and if we play like we played here we’ll be O.K.”

Penalties were again a factor. Shawinigan managed a power play goal on their second chance with an extra attacker, and Lewiston did likewise, but the Cataractes appeared better composed on the night, allowing just three Maineiacs’ power plays.

“We could be even more physical, I think,” Veilleux said. “That’s our game, that’s how we play, and that’s how we have to win hockey games.”

The teams will take two days off and travel to Shawinigan for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Should a Game 5 be necessary, the teams would return to the Colisee on Sunday, April 1.

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