Ed Harding was happy about the victory but not pleased with how it occurred.

His Lewiston Maineiacs built a 3-0 lead Friday night and then watched Moncton rally and force overtime. Lewiston had to win the game in a shoot-out on a Kevin Marshall goal for the 4-3 win at the Moncton Coliseum.

“We had a little meeting with the boys after,” said Harding. “I said, ‘You guys shouldn’t be happy.’ It comes down to the older guys and leadership. We should have been able to put that team away 4-0 or 4-1. This has happened four or five times this year. We haven’t gotten over that hump yet. We’re a better team than Moncton, and we proved it early on. Then we gave up 19 shots in the third. We did some stupid things. They thought it was going to be easy in the third period.”

Lewiston and Moncton went through six rounds of the shootout before Marshall scored and Maineiac goaltender Jonathan Bernier made the stop on Scott Brannon.

“I think Kevin was surprised when I called his name on the bench,” said Harding. “That’s probably a good thing. He didn’t have time to think about it. At that point, you’re just calling players out.”

Lewiston took a 2-0 lead in the opening period on a pair of Stefan Chaput goals. The first came at 3:41 on assists from Patrick Cusack and Stefano Giliati. The second came on the power play at 6:58 off feeds from Denis Reul and Marshall.

“We followed the game plan,” said Harding. “We got off to a good start. We moved the puck real well. We had three bad turnovers in the first period, but we were able to overcome those. It was only four shots against and three of those were on their power play.”

In the second, Giliati netted his 18th at 18:42. Chaput had his third point of the night with an assist.

Moncton outshot Lewiston 18-10 in the final period and made a game of it. Randy Cameron scored on the power play at 1:30. Then Brannon made it 3-2 at 7:56. Matt Marquardt got the equalizer with the goaltender pulled at 19:38.

“We took stupid penalties,” said Harding. We had to kill a five-on-three. They got six, seven or eight shots off on their power play, and we started to panic a little too much.”

In the shootout, Dave Taylor and Phil Mangan each scored. Then Lewiston’s Chris Tutalo and Giliati each missed as did Moncton’s Marquardt and Cameron. In the fourth round, Chaput and Jesse Biduke scored then in the fifth round, Marc-Andre Aneau and Mark Barberio traded goals. Lewiston’s Alexander Beaton was stopped in the sixth round and Bernier stymied Matt Brown.

Lewiston’s road trip continues at Acadie-Bathurst Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

“I’m happy with the two points, but the way it came about, we still have to grow as a team,” said Harding.