Intelligence on the ice is more than knowing where to be, and where to put the puck. It’s more than knowing where your teammates are, and knowing your opponent well ahead of time.

In the coming weeks, hockey intelligence for the Lewiston Maineiacs will involve knowing when to get off the ice, how to conserve energy and how best to maximize their time away from the rink.

Already having played the most games (30) in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the Maineiacs hit the road this week for three games in four days, and follow that with three more in six days at home.

“We have so many games in a short amount of time, and we have a lot of travel in between,” Lewiston coach J.F. Houle said. “We also have to take into consideration we might need a day off in between games. It’s not easy, the travel, for anyone, even the coaches. But we have to keep working hard.”

The Maineiacs have won 20 of their 30 games and lost another pair in shootouts for a total of 42 points, fourth-best in the QMJHL. Three of the six games in the team’s upcoming stretch are against teams with even better records, and another against a team — Moncton — that always plays Lewiston tough and just took the Maineiacs to a shootout at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“There’s never an easy road trip, and we keep saying there are no easy games,” Houle said. “But this stretch of games, it’s going to be a good test.”

The trip began Sunday, when the Maineiacs rode a bus a bit more than halfway to their first destination, Cape Breton. The team finished the drive Monday, and will face the Screaming Eagles in Sydney, Nova Scotia, on Tuesday night.

“We don’t know much about Cape Breton, we don’t see them much,” Houle said. “We’ve seen them on video, and the game we saw them play, they look like a pretty good team.”

The Eagles are 9-18-0-2 this season, and are at the tail end of a five-game home stand during which they are 2-2. Viktor Hertzberg is the leading scorer in Cape Breton, with 33 points.

The trip continues with back-to-back games in Moncton on Thursday and Saint John on Friday. Moncton and Lewiston battled last weekend in a shootout, which the Maineiacs won on goals from Kirill Kabanov and Sam Carrier.

Saint John, meanwhile, has lost just three games in regulation this season, and another pair in shootouts while racking up 21 wins in 26 games. The Sea Dogs are the highest-rated QMJHL team in the weekly Canadian Hockey League Mastercard Top 10, and have three players rated in the first round of next summer’s NHL entry draft.

Montreal, another top-ranked team, has just four regulation losses, and will visit Lewiston on Sunday.

Baie-Comeau (Tuesday, Dec. 7) and Saint John (Friday, Dec. 10) also visit next week.

Team depth is going to have to shine, Houle said, for the team to succeed during this stretch.

“We always need to have fresh legs on the ice,” Houle said. “Last year, at certain times, it felt like I had a couple of guys out there all the time, in every situation, and they were on the ice quite a bit. This year, there’s more time for recovery. I don’t consider our fourth line a fourth line, I feel like we have four first lines, I really do.”

Adding Kabanov to the lineup has allowed for that to happen, and it’s made juggling lines a bit tough for the coaching staff. But this week, it’s all hands on deck. As of Tuesday, anyone scratched from the lineup, Houle said, is healthy.