VANCOUVER, British Columbia – A costly miscue with the Lewiston Maineiacs on the power play late in the third led to the tying goal, and an Andrew Fournier tap-in four minutes, 19 seconds into overtime gave the Plymouth Whalers new life after an improbable 2-1 victory in the Memorial Cup tournament on Tuesday night.

Fournier gathered the rebound of a Ryan McGinnis shot and fired the puck into the net past Lewiston keeper Jonathan Bernier.

“I won that draw back to McGinnis, he took a quick snapper on net, Fournier said. “I went to the net, and the puck was right on my stick.”

The Whalers had tied the score when Evan Brophey jammed the puck home while short-handed with just 1:12 left in regulation.

“Do or die, we knew we had to score or we were going home,” Fournier said.”The puck popped out of the corner and Brophey made a good move to the net, whacked at it a couple of times, and put it in.”

The Maineiacs, 1-2 in the round robin, must now wait for tonight’s contest between Medicine Hat and Vancouver to find out their destiny. If Vancouver wins, Lewiston will play in the semifinal Friday against the winner of a play-in between Medicine Hat and Plymouth. If Medicine Hat wins, Lewiston will have a rematch with the Whalers in the play-in on Thursday.

“Sometimes it seems that we wait until our backs are against the wall and then we wake up and play,” Plymouth coach Mike Vellucci said.

Lewiston thought it had scored at the 5:07 mark of the period on its sixth as Stefan Chaput streaked through the low slot and appeared to tip the puck past Whalers’ goalie Michal Neuvirth.

A slow-motion replay on the arena’s big screen showed the puck deflect off of a Plymouth defender’s stick and float over Neuvirth as Chaput took a swing at it with his elbow.

A video review determined that Chaput had indeed hit the puck with his gloved hand, and the goal was disallowed.

Chaput disagreed.

“I didn’t even see it go in,” Chaput said. “It went off of their defenseman’s stick, and then I got hit in the face with a stick, so I turned away. It hit me in the chest and went in.”

Nearly 10 minutes later, a great individual effort from David Perron and a finish from Simon Courcelles put the Maineiacs on top.

Perron picked off a defenseman’s pass at his own blue line and took off toward Neuvirth. Halfway there, Perron felt a stick in his midsection, went down on one knee and drew a hooking call, but kept going forward. He managed a shot on net, Neuvirth stopped it, but Courcelles followed with a goal on the rebound.

“I thought we came out and played better in the second, and then poured it on in the third,” Courcelles said.

Lewiston and Plymouth were conservative early. Neither team had very much to show for their efforts in the first.

For the better part of the second, Plymouth held the advantage in 5-on-5 play, launching a first-period-matching 12 shots at Bernier with no power play time.

On the other end, Lewiston had the power-play chances, but couldn’t do anything. The Maineiacs finished the night 0-for-7 with the man-advantage.

jpelletier@sunjournal.com