It was the right comeback at the right time for a young Lewiston Maineiacs squad. They just couldn’t finish it off.

A furious third-period come from behind effort went for naught Sunday as Jason Rajotte fired the puck past Lewiston netminder Adrien Lemay with 5:05 to play and Quebec added an empty-net tally with less than one second remaining to lift the Remparts to a home-opening 5-3 win over the visiting Maineiacs in front of more than 11,000 fans at the Colisee Pepsi in Quebec City.

“I thought this team worked well and battled hard and never quit,” Maineiacs’ coach Don MacAdam said. “We did some things very well, and some others were a reflection of having so many new guys from different teams who maybe aren’t quite used to playing together yet. We’re still a work in progress, but we’re a fun work in progress. It’s fun to watch.”

The Maineiacs begin the final frame two goals back of consensus league favorite Quebec. Alexis Piette cut the deficit in half with a strike at 4:50, and former Remparts’ defenseman Samuel Carrier netted his first of the season at 7:23 to even the game at 3-3.

After killing off a four-minute 5-on-4, the Remparts, who were outshot 10-4 in the final frame, got the goal from Rajotte to ignite the home crowd.

“Lemay made the first save on the play,”MacAdam said. “It looked like, during game action, that the defenseman got to his man, but I’m going to have to look at the video on it, because I think we could have done a better job on net-front coverage from the forwards.”

Jonathan Audy-Marchessault slipped behind the defense on a long clear and tapped the puck over the goal line into an undefended cage with the clock showing one-tenth of a second remaining to close out the scoring.

Quebec, missing eight players to professional training camps, started quickly Sunday. Marc-Olivier Vallerand and Maxime Gravel each scored on the Remparts’ two power play chances in the first to open up a 2-0 edge through that period.

“We talked about the atmosphere before the game, and how our guys could try to use that energy to our own advantage,” MacAdam said. “The first two goals, I thought were preventable. One of the things we need to do is change personnel better, and so many of our guys coming from different teams have done it different ways.”

In the second, the teams traded goals. Lewiston’s Sebastien Trudeau, also a former Quebec skater, cut the lead to 2-1 at 6:52, only to see Gravel push the lead back to two with his second just past the 10-minute mark.

The Maineiacs’ next two games are at home. Lewiston will host Baie-Comeau in back-to-back 7 p.m. games Friday and Saturday at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee, officially opening its 2009 home schedule. The two games are the Drakkar’s lone two appearances in Lewiston this season.