LEWISTON — The clock ticked past six minutes remaining in regulation, and the hockey patrons at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee inched closer to the edge of their seats.

They’d seen this film before, with the Lewiston Maineiacs on top by a goal, only to see the home team stumble to a finish.

They had reason to worry again on Friday.

Playing their second game against Shawinigan in four nights, the Maineiacs surrendered a pair of goals in the final 5:10 of the third period — including the power play game-winner with 2:58 remaining — as the Cataractes escaped the Colisee with a 3-2 victory.

“I thought we beat ourselves tonight,” Maineiacs’ coach J.F. Houle said. “We had the lead with (six) minutes left. We took some bad penalties late in the game and it cost us.”

Sitting on a 2-1 lead, the Maineiacs made a bad line change to send Michael Bournival and Olivier Ouellet in on a 2-on-1. Ouellet drew the defender to the right and slid the puck to Bournival, who crossed up keeper Adrien Lemay with a quick deke and stuffed the puck five-hole to even the game.

“I changed the lines a little bit in the third period,” Shawinigan coach Eric Veilleux said. “Ouellet usually skates on the second line, but in the third I put him with Bournival and (Pierre-Alexandre) Vandall, and we saw what happened.”

Twenty seconds after the Cats notched the equalizer, Mathieu Brisebois went to the penalty box for holding in the defensive corner. With eight seconds to play in the man-advantage, Philippe Paradis found a second-chance rebound to Lemay’s left after a terrific save by the sprawling keeper and buried the chance to put Shawinigan back in front to stay.

“I thought we could have moved the puck better on the power play,” Veilleux said. “It got the job done, but we need to get that going. We need to be better as we got closer to the playoffs.”

Lewiston began the third period in a 1-0 hole. Michael Chaput redirected a long turn-around dump-in by Matthew Bissonette past Shawinigan goalie Gabriel Girard to even things up, and Bissonette notched his ninth of the season at 12:34 of the final frame on a rebound off the back boards after a Brisebois shot went astray to Girard’s left.

“We talked about it between the second and the third, we needed to come out faster,” Houle said. “I was happy to see that happen.” 

The first period Friday belonged to the goalies. Lemay stuffed 13 Shawinigan shots, and Girard matched him and added two more in a 15-save effort in the opening frame.

Among Girard’s stops was a penalty shot. Officials awarded Etienne Brodeur a shot after he was hauled down on a shorthanded breakaway at 5:29 of the first, less than a minute after Pierre-Olivier Morin was similarly interfered with, though no call resulted the first time.

Lemay stared down a 2-on-0 on a Shawinigan shorthanded chance, and Girard robbed Billy Lacasse and Michal Hlinka late in the stanza to keep it scoreless.

Olivier Ouellet broke the scoreless deadlock 4:27 into the second on a rebound to Lemay’s left after a long shot from the point by Gabriel Lemieux. The shot came from the left point, Yannick Veilleux tipped it into Lemay’s pads and Ouellet cleaned up the garbage to put his team on top by a goal. 

Lewiston and Shawinigan traded power play chances late in the frame, but again the teams came up empty.