LEWISTON — You couldn’t blame Nathan Dunnett for feeling like a deer in the headlights Saturday night.

With every shift, the Lewiston Maineiacs sent wave after wave of players toward the Baie-Comeau goalkeeper, and with every opportunity, they hacked at pucks bouncing around the painted blue arc in which Dunnett dove, butterflied and lunged, trying to keep them from bouncing into the cage.

Dunnett performed well, but the Maineiacs’ pressure was too great.

Four different Lewiston skaters scored and Adrien Lemay stopped 32 of the 33 shots on the other end to lead the Maineiacs to a 4-1 win over Baie-Comeau and a sweep of the teams’ home-opening series at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“We needed this for us, for the team and for the organization,” Maineiacs’ captain Billy Lacasse said. “It’s a great feeling right now. On the team, there’s great chemistry. It’s fun to be here.”

Lacasse had a goal and a pair of assists in the winning cause, including a shorthanded marker on a breakaway to put the Maineiacs on top 4-0 early in the third period.

“Their power play, they were making passes all over the place,” Lacasse said. “We were just getting in front of them all night.”

Lewiston’s power play also showed some life. Two of the team’s four goals came with an extra skater on the ice, and the team is now 3-for-26 on the power play.

One of the bigger differences in the Maineiacs’ game Saturday was their ability to capitalize on second-chance opportunities in front of Dunnett, something the team lacked in Friday’s 3-2 overtime win.

“(Friday) we got lots of first chances, and very few second or third chances,” Maineiacs’ coach Don MacAdam said. “That was the difference tonight. We had a lot more chances right on top of the goalie.” 

Showing a burst of energy early, the line of Etienne Brodeur, Samuel Henley and Jean-Francois Plante injected more than a little get-up-and-go into the game. Just 3:05 into the contest, that line scored the contest’s first goal.

After breaking out of the Lewiston end, Plante dumped the puck behind the net, where it got hunk up on the twine. Henley crashed hard to the back of the cage, popped the puck off the netting and fed it out front, where Brodeur, on his second whack, registered his first goal of the season.

In similar fashion, Stefan Fournier made it 2-0 with 1:09 to play in the first, stuffing the puck through Dunnett from the left post on a Lewiston power play. During the power play, the Maineiacs used Lacasse at the left point, and he contributed an assist on that goal.

“The first period, I thought we played better than we did last night, really,” Baie-Comeau coach Stephane Hains said. “We had fewer giveaways. But (Friday) night, we stayed tied 0-0, and (Saturday) we were down 2-0. The Maineiacs did a good job capitalizing on their chances.”

The Lewiston power play struck again early in the second, this time it was Alex Beaton stuffing home the puck at the left side after a nifty between-the-legs pass from Lacasse just outside the crease.

“I was trying to shoot, honestly,” Lacasse said, laughing. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter.”

Things got chippy between the teams after Gabriel Bourque, who’d been a pest — and the Drakkar’s best player — all night, kneed Brodeur in the Maineiacs’ zone. Brodeur went flying, defenseman Eric Bonawitz came to his defense and the teams settled down after officials called a pair of minor penalties. Still, the hits were a bit harder, and the play a bit tighter following that incident.

The teams traded goals in the third period, with Lacasse netting his shorthanded tally early, followed closely by Simon Olsson’s second goal of the weekend.

“I thought if anything we were a bit sloppy in the third period,” MacAdam said. “The forwards were a little lazy getting back and we were running around a bit, and that contributed to their goal. But overall, I think this was a great weekend for the team, and for the people in the building.”