LEWISTON — Etienne Brodeur flies a bit under the radar.

The 18-year-old second-year forward, who was one of the Maineiacs’ three first-round picks in the 2008 QMJHL draft, was billed when he was drafted as a “bowling ball on skates” who would provide a measure of toughness and grit to the team for the next four seasons.

After learning the league and its speed for a season, Brodeur returned to the Maineiacs this season with a new focus and a new energy. He’s in better shape, and that grit for which he was known in his other leagues is showing through in spades.

“Etienne works so hard,” Maineiacs’ coach Don MacAdam said. “He’s a good example of the work ethic we want and need to have on this team.”

Brodeur smiled sheepishly at the thought of being a leader on the squad.

“They’re two really good players,” Brodeur said of his linemates. “It’s fun to play with them.”

In two games over the last three, Brodeur has led a line that has included two rookies — 16-year-old forwards Samuel Henley and Jean-Francois Plante.

“I thought that line was probably our best line in Quebec last weekend,” MacAdam said. “That line, whether it has (Francis) Beauvillier or Plante, they have skill, and if they work hard with the skill they have, they can be, they are good players.

“One of the things we asked Etienne to do was to be that leader,” MacAdam continued. “He’s a really good kid who works really hard, and he certainly is the glue for that line, no question.”

SPECIALISTS

It’s a rarity in hockey, but the Lewiston Maineiacs are becoming known across the league for being one of the most effective penalty-killing scoring machines this side of Ottawa. Last year, the Maineiacs led the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in goals while short-handed, scoring 17 times in short-handed situations.

But don’t let this year’s coaching staff hear you say that was a good thing.

“You could very easily see why this team led the league in short-handed goals last year,” MacAdam said. “They could care less about killing penalties. Seriously, they were more concerned about going the other way. The guy that was leading the league in short-handed goals, I couldn’t use him on the PK because he was too busy trying to score a goal.”

That’s changed a bit this year. The team may still be among the league leaders in short-handed goals, but it’s going to be for a different reason.

“With our speed, it really intimidates the other team, especially the defense, and it makes us that much harder to play against,” MacAdam said.

Billy Lacasse, the Maineiacs’ captain, tallied the team’s first short-handed goal of the season Saturday against Baie-Comeau. Rimouski leads the league early with two.

But the biggest difference in that category is the actual percentage of penalties killed. Last year, to MacAdam’s point, Lewiston led the league with 17 short-handed goals, but was dead last with a 74.3 penalty-kill percentage. This year, through two weekends, the Maineiacs are second in the league at 87 percent.

EASY TO OVERLOOK

Adrien Lemay is just steady. So steady, MacAdam said, it’s easy to overlook him sometimes.

“He’s just such a good goaltender,” MacAdam said. “This is such a big year for him, and he’s a big part of the success we’ve been having.”

MacAdam didn’t stop there.

“On opening night, he was our best penalty killer, and that’s virtually all we did in that game was kill penalties. The second night he had a lot of good scrambles around the net, didn’t get a whole lot of support at certain times, and then Friday and Saturday here at home, he’s just our best player.”

DISCIPLINE MATTERS

Baie-Comeau coach Stephane Hains sounded familiar.

“We just weren’t disciplined,” he said after Saturday’s loss to Lewiston. “You can’t be like that against a team like Lewiston and win the game. They made us pay.”

Just one year ago, that line was a familiar refrain coming from the Lewiston Maineiacs’ locker room.

“We had to bench really good players last year, simply because you can’t win that way,” MacAdam said. “That’s a case of a player putting himself above the team.”

Not this year, MacAdam said.

“That’s not what this group is about,” MacAdam said. “They know that discipline is a cornerstone for success. We had one situation Friday night where our player took a really dumb penalty, took a power play from us, and he wouldn’t have been playing (Saturday) night if we didn’t have two guys hurt. Every body knows that. They know what’s acceptable on this team and what’s not. Discipline is not an option. Without discipline, we’ll self-destruct, and we took advantage, in my mind, of a lack of discipline and used it to our advantage.”

FUN WITH NUMBERS

Talk to anyone who was at Friday night’s home-opener, and to a person they’ll tell you there were at least 2,800 people there. Most will tell you there “had to be at least 3,000.”

There weren’t many seats to be found, the end sections were almost full, and most of the bleachers were covered with people.

When the announcement came that only 2,632 people paid to see the game, there was a shocked murmur. MacAdam offered a reason for the perceived shortfall after Saturday’s game, at which the announced attendance reached just 2,061.

“The difference this year is that we’re reporting the exact number of people who paid to get in the building,” MacAdam said. “It’s not going to be an inflated number of some kind, so to some, it may not seem to compare to last year’s totals, but this year’s will all be paid attendance with no inflated numbers.”

TIME OFF

In a rare Monday respite, the players and coaches will gather at Turner Highlands Golf Course on Monday for the team’s annual golf outing and benefit auction, with proceeds going to the Maineiacs’ Education Foundation.

“That’s going to be fun for the players,” MacAdam said. “We have to remember, this still needs to be fun.”