LEWISTON — It’s admittedly strange for some of the members of the Lewiston Maineiacs this week.

The team is making its annual pilgrimage to Rouyn-Noranda and Val d’Or, the longest road trip of the season, and this year the team will bang out all four road games against the two teams in one trip, forming a four-games-in-five-nights mega trip.

And the temperatures are still moderate, and there isn’t yet a coat of ice and snow on the roads in those extreme northern towns.

“It’s going to be good for us to get the trip done in one shot,” Maineiacs’ coach J.F. Houle said. “Every team has to do (the trip), and Rouyn-Noranda and Val d’Or have to do it more than anyone else, so it’s not easy, but we have to deal with it. We can’t use it as a crutch.”

The trip itself, and the hockey the teams will play, will be a touch easier, Houle said, with the Maineiacs coming off an emotional victory over Acadie-Bathurst last Saturday.

“It’s good to head out on the road coming off a win,” Houle said. “The players, I thought they played really well this weekend, even though we only got one win. I thought the first game (a 3-1 loss) was a really good game where we fell short. But at least the players worked hard.”

“You could feel the enthusiasm after the win. You could sense a feeling of, ‘It’s our time to win now,'” he added.

The momentum the team is riding will be a key catalyst against a pair of teams who are expected to struggle this season. Both Val d’Or and Rouyn-Noranda were loaded with 19-year-old talent last season, and both have taken a roster hit. The Huskies are 2-4-0-0 this season and have scored just 11 goals in six games while allowing 30. The game at the new Iamgold arena (formerly the Dave Keon Arena) will be another stop on the homecoming tour for Nick Champion. The Maineiacs’ keeper was a keeper for the Huskies for the last half of last season, while the team tried to make a run at the league title.

The pair of games with the Foreurs will also feature a homecoming for a member of the Maineiacs. Sam Henley, a 17-year-old forward with the Maineiacs, is from that town. His brother, Cedrick, is an NHL-drafted forward with the team. Val d’Or is 3-3-0-0 in six games, and has a more respectable ratio of 20 goals scored to 25 against.

The Maineiacs themselves are also starting to figure things out in terms of line combinations. After a long period during which the lineup was in flux, Houle juggled things around. He’s starting to learn now what might work best going forward.

“It’s starting to come together now,” Houle said. “I really feel comfortable with that Critchlow-Houde-Caron-Henley as a defensive line. I think they do a really good job of playing simple hockey. All of the other lines, they’re starting to gel. In hockey, though, you never know. Some people have bad games, or really good games. I’m sure there will be some more juggling.

“With (Bissonnette) going down, someone else will have to step in and do the job,” Houle continued. “A guy like Tanguy, he proved it with two goals the other night he can be a power play guy. Guys like that really need to step up.”

Andrey Makarov, the team’s Russian netminder, watched last weekend adn Champion tended the cage for both games against his former team. This week, with four games in five days, Makarov will almost assuredly see an expanded role.

“He’s learning the language really, really fast, the guys enjoy him and he’s pretty happy around the players,” Houle said. “I have no problems with him in net, I think he’s done a good job in the games he’s played, and he’ll see some time this week, it’s just a matter of the schedule, and which games.”

Lewiston opens its road swing Wednesday in Rouyn-Noranda, and will again face the Huskies on Friday. The team will then skate in back-to-back contests with Val d’Or on Saturday and Sunday before returning overnight to Lewiston.

The team’s next home games are on Friday, Oct. 8 and Sunday, Oct. 10 against Victoriaville at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.