Playing from behind was playing with fire for the Lewiston Maineiacs on Saturday afternoon, and Victoriaville burned them.

The Tigres scored three goals in the third period and held on the rest of the way, getting an empty-net goal in the final minute of regulation to seal a 4-2 win over the visiting Maineiacs in front of 2,032 at the Colisee Desjardins.

“We got off to a slower start, but it was more about Victoriaville coming out a bit hungry,” Lewiston coach Ed Harding said. “They probably were a bit upset they’d lost at home, and that’s the way it goes.”

The Tigres had little time to stew over a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Maineiacs the night before, which featured a wacky finish and a barrage of essentially meaningless goals in the final minute of the contest.

Saturday, Victoriaville began like a house afire, launching 15 shots at Lewiston keeper Peter Delmas in the first 20 minutes. Three of them, including two on the power play, eluded the 18-year-old netminder.

“It was goaltending and special teams again,” Harding said. “We had guys out there who didn’t rotate properly (on the penalty-kill). On their first power-play goal, we couldn’t get the puck out of the zone, and we had two other guys blowing the zone, thinking it was going out. The next one, we left the guy all alone in the slot. On the third one, we gave up a partial odd-man rush, and Peter was way off his angle there. He’s got to make that save, and if you ask him, he’ll tell you that.”

The Maineiacs’ defense clamped down from there, allowing just seven shots to reach Delmas in the final two periods, and just two in the second as they attempted a comeback.

Danick Paquette was the team’s offensive star on this night, scoring a short-handed goal at 2:09 of the middle frame and following that with a power-play marker at 9:13.

“He needs to play, he needs to understand what his role is and the leadership he needs to show as a captain,” Harding said. “He did a good job (Saturday). He was a little bit more protective of the puck.”

The 23 shots the Maineiacs allowed were on par with recent games, in which Lewiston has allowed 19, 20 and 23 shots against. Each of those games were losses.

In Friday night’s win, Lewiston allowed 34 to reach Delmas.

“I guess we have to give up 30 shots to win, if you want to look at the humorous side a bit,” Harding laughed.

The Maineiacs will square off against the Remparts on Sunday afternoon in Quebec City, and will catch Quebec at the tail end of its own 3-game-in-3-nights swing. The Remparts spent Saturday in Rimouski, where they lost in a shootout, 2-1.