LEWISTON – Much better, but still a loss.

Ryan Graham drew a penalty shot as he tried to get past Lewiston’s defense with 5:28 to play in the third period and scored on the ensuing shot. Drew Paris followed that with a shot off the left post that bounced into the net just 18 seconds into overtime to lead the Acadie-Bathurst Titan to a 3-2 win over the Lewiston Maineiacs in front of 3,616 – the largest crowd of the season – at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“The puck bounced a certain way for us tonight in the first two periods, and then in third it bounced our way,” Titan coach Ronald Choule said. “I think we earned every chance we got tonight, even though there weren’t many.”

After the game, Maineiacs’ head coach Ed Harding said he was “ashamed,” but certainly not at his own team.

“I think that they think that our fans are unknowledgeable and don’t know what’s going on,” Harding said. “The penalties we took, we probably deserved, except the last one should not have been a penalty shot. I took a penalty on the bench because I told (referee Nicolas Dutil) that he should be ashamed of what he’s doing. Do you think that there were any ‘F-words’ fired? No. I told he should be ashamed. So this guy’s got rabbit ears. Our league should be ashamed when they run that guy out there to do a job like that, then to think that our fans aren’t knowledgeable. It’s a travesty for our kids after they busted their you-know-whats.”

The final penalty distribution gave the Titan seven power plays, including a 5-on-3 in the middle part of the final frame, while the Maineiacs had three chances with an extra skater.

This time, they capitalized twice while holding the Titan scoreless.

“After a game like last night (a 7-1 Titan win), to see how they came back, was great,” Harding said. “Our guys came out and played with a lot of passion tonight, and not only did they have to play Bathurst, they had to play against that referee.”

What a difference a night made, at least in the first period.

The Maineiacs scored first for the first time in six games, and on the power play, when Stefano Giliati fired a rocket past Nicolas Champion from the high slot on a Chris Tutalo faceoff win.

“The puck went right back to Ward and he found me open,” Giliati said.

“We worked on that exact play in practice last night,” Harding said.

The Maineiacs appeared ready to take the lead into the first break, but a turnover in front of Delmas by the usually-sure-handed Kevin Marshall gave Eric Faille all the room he needed to deke Delmas to the ice and slide the puck through the 5-hole to even the score at 1-1.

The power play worked again in the second, though it won’t officially count in the statistics this morning.

Eric Gelinas worked the puck back and forth with Tutalo at the left boards, creating a space through the center of the slot. As a penalty to Acadie-Bathurst expired, Tutalo rifled a pass through the middle and connected with Giliti, who roofed the puck short side to put Lewiston on top, 2-1.

“I was open all night back door (Friday),” Tutalo said. “This time, he found the spot. I was just waiting, because I knew he’d eventually be open.”

Lewiston is on the road for a pair of games next weekend, and returns to the Colisee for a back-to-back set with Halifax on Tuesday, February 26 and Wednesday, February 27.