Just when it appeared the Lewiston Maineiacs’ improbable, third-period comeback would be in vain, the team’s most consistent performer this season came through in the clutch.

Etienne Brodeur scored his second goal of the game — and eighth of the season — 2:15 into overtime to cap a four-goal comeback and lift the Maineiacs to a 5-4 win over Val d’Or in the team’s fourth game in five nights Sunday.

“We’re very excited we won the game,” Maineiacs’ coach J.F. Houle said. “We’re not necessarily excited about the way the game went overall, the overall game play, but we took five points out of eight on this tough road trip, and that was tough to do.”

Brodeur has scored eight times this season, three of which have come shorthanded. This time, the speedy 19-year-old winger collected the puck in his own end, raced up the boards, dragged the puck to his forehand and snapped a shot through the defenseman’s legs on a 1-on-1 and hit the top corner over the shoulder of Val d’Or keeper Jacob Gervais-Chouinard.

“He’s been playing intense and he’s been racking up points,” Houle said. “His level of play has been high, and today it really helped us.”

Nicholas Champion, making his first start in net since a shootout loss in Rouyn-Noranda on Wednesday, allowed four goals, including one with less than a minute to play, but his performance early allowed the Maineiacs to stay in the game at all. In the first two periods, the Foreurs outshot Lewiston 24-10.

It appeared early that the Maineiacs were going to be out of gas quickly. They allowed two goals in the opening frame and Val d’Or outshot them 13-4.

“We got into too much penalty trouble in the first period, but we worked out of it in the second,” Houle said.

Lewiston fought back in the second. Champion stood his ground, and Brodeur opened the scoring for Lewiston to cut the deficit in half. With a period to play, the Maineiacs trailed by just one.

“It was a weird game,” Houle said. Nothing was working in the first period, we got one in the second, and then it was hit or miss in the third.”

Lewiston roared out in the third. Goals from Michael Chaput, Sam Carrier and Jess Tanguy in the period’s first nine minutes erased the team’s one-goal deficit and staked the Maineiacs to a 4-2 lead.

But like in Wednesday’s game in Rouyn-Noranda, that two-goal lead evaporated.

“It was like we stopped playing,” Houle said. “Our power play hadn’t been doing anything in the first part of the game, we got two goals in the third on the PP, and then we crumbled after we got a 4-2 lead.”

Shawn Morton-Boutin and Jonathan Hazen netted goals, the latter scoring his with less than a minute to play in regulation, to force overtime.