Danick Paquette reached double digits in the goal column Sunday afternoon, the Lewiston Maineiacs outshot the PEI Rocket better than 2-to-1, and for the first time this season, the Maineiacs didn’t allow an opponent to score a power play goal.

It didn’t matter.

Veteran netminder Bobby Nadeau stymied Lewiston’s best efforts – including on a long 5-on-3 in the second period and on a prolonged 6-on-5 with the goaltender pulled at the end of the game – to lift the host Rocket to a 3-1 win over the Maineiacs in front of 1,807 at the Charlottetown Civic Centre on Sunday.

“It’s really hard to find a negative with the way we’re playing right now,” Maineiacs’ coach Ed Harding said. “They followed the game plan and they’re doing everything we ask of them. We can just hope that through this adversity it will build character.”

Paquette’s 10th of the season, a short-handed strike early in the third period, cut the Rocket’s lead to 2-1, and the Maineiacs applied all kinds of pressure through the middle part of the frame, but Nadeau was up to the task.

Rookie Jean-Philippe Mathieu notched his second goal of the season at the 6:52 mark to reestablish his team’s two-goal edge, an edge it never relinquished.

Lewiston played inspired hockey early, taking eight shots at Nadeau before PEI had a chance to cycle through all four of its lines.

“The first shot they got was on a power play,” Harding said. “And that wasn’t even a penalty that should have been called.”

The Rocket got on the board first, courtesy of Mathieu Tousignant, who struck for his seventh of the season at 13:23 of the opening frame. Ben Duffy made it 2-0 on PEI’s fourth shot of the game less than three minutes later.

The Maineiacs will return to action this week at home, hosting three games in four nights beginning Thursday night at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee against the Chicoutimi Sagueneens.