Saturday’s effort was better, but not good enough for the Lewiston Maineiacs against one of the early-season league-favorites.

 Moncton’s prize European import player made a splash in his debut and 17-year-old goaltender Louis Domingue played his finest game of the young season as the Wildcats stuffed the Maineiacs 2-0 in front of 4,778 at the Moncton Coliseum on Saturday in the Maineiacs’ second game in as many nights.

“Their goaltender was really on his game,” Maineiacs’ coach Don MacAdam said. “He takes away a lot of the net and he’s just a really good player. I know talking to Coach (Danny) Flynn, they didn;t get him in as much as they would have liked last year, but he had a chance to practice with them all year and face quality shots and develop as a player.”

Domingue was particularly good in the second and early third periods, when the Maineiacs were pressing for a tying goal. On the other end, the Wildcats got on the board in the opening frame on a goal by superstar Russian import Kirill Kabanov.

 “He was left open in front,” MacAdam said. “He’s going to be a good player in this league, he’s got great speed and he’s a bit of a showman. I think it’s going to be good for this league that Mr. Irving was able to bring him over here.”

Kabanov has been practicing with Moncton for a few weeks, but was just cleared this week to play by the IIHF.

Adrien Lemay was back in net for the Maineiacs one night after being pulled in the second period against Acadie-Bathurst.

“He was good (Friday) night, it’s just that we were playing so poorly in front of him that we didn’t want to waste another good goaltending effort,” MacAdam said.

Saturday also marked the return to the ice for Eric Gelinas, the Maineiacs’ stalwart defenseman who’d been serving a two-game suspension for an intent-to-injure penalty assessed last weekend.

“He was fine,” MacAdam said. “He was on the ice for the first goal against, and he was a bit out of position, but overall he played very well, he had a very good game.”

Moncton added a second goal late in the third to salt the game away as Brandon Gormley netted his third of the season at 14:50 of the final frame.

Lewiston caps its three-in-three swing Sunday afternoone with a 3 p.m. contest against the PEI Rocket in Charlottetown.