SYDNEY, Nova Scotia – It was hard to tell which lights went out first Friday night – those in the ceiling of Centre 200 or those of the Lewiston Maineiacs.

All week, Lewiston’s coaching staff has been impressing upon the players the importance of remaining penalty-free, or in the very least minimizing the number of penalties taken against the potent Cape Breton power play, which was second-best in the QMJHL this season.

“We knew this, we knew this coming in, and we weren’t smart,” Maineiacs’ head coach Ed Harding said.

A power outage with 9:30 to play in the first period slowed the pace of a frenetic game in which the Eagles had a decided advantage, thanks in large part to, of course, their power play.

“That’s been a big piece of what we do all season,” Eagles’ forward Jordan Clendenning said.

Innocently enough, 20-year-old forward Chris Tutalo tried to flip the puck out of the zone from behind his own net and caught the protective netting instead of the glass, earning a two-minute penalty for the infraction.

Thirty-two seconds later, Jordan Clendenning put Cape Breton ahead 1-0 on a rebound at the left post. Left unmarked, Clendenning, the Acadie-Bathurst transplant and former Titan captain, slipped a rebound past goalie Jonathan Bernier on an Alex Lamontagne slapshot from the point.

Less than one minute later, Danick Paquette and Stefan Chaput went to the box for separate penalties, leaving the Eagles with a 5-on-3. Forty-seven seconds after that, Lamontagne registered one of his own from the left point to put the Eagles ahead, 2-0.

“Clearing the puck over the glass in our own zone was stupid,” Harding said. “Getting into it after a whistle was stupid. We have to play smarter.”

Five of the Screaming Eagles’ first six shots came with an extra skater or two, and two of them got through to the net. On the game, nine of the Eagles’ 36 shots came on the power play.

After the actual power outage, which darkened a section of the rink for about 10 minutes, Cape Breton used the break to its advantage. Fifty-five seconds after the break, Lamontagne picked up his third shot of the game – and his third point – when his shot left a rebound at the right post, picked up by Joey Haddad for the third Cape Breton goal.

“That could have been dangerous,” Haddad said, “because they could have gotten some momentum.”

The Maineiacs’ didn’t gain anything from the extended time out.

The Eagles did, and turned the lights out on their opponents, at least for one game.