LEWISTON — And so it begins.

With pair of players on the roster who once played for Moncton, another whose team last season fell victim to the Wildcats’ run through the playoffs and a team president who worked for seven years with the Moncton organization, the Lewiston Maineiacs are more than familiar with their first-round playoff opponent.

But defeating one of the more successful QMJHL franchises of the past 10 years will prove to be a much more difficult task than just knowing about them.

“We had a team meeting the other day, we went over every single player they have,” Lewiston coach J.F. Houle said. “The one thing we talked about was their power play more than anything, with the Saulnier brothers on there, they’re very skilled. Gormley has a big shot. He’s probably going to play 30 minutes. But the most glaring thing is their experience in the playoffs.”

The Moncton Wildcats won the 2010 President’s Cup after finishing third overall in the standings, upending the Jean Rougeau Trophy-winning Saint John Sea Dogs in six games in the league final, the first-ever all-Maritimes QMJHL final. That win followed up on a 2006 league title, and in the past six seasons, Moncton has 241 victories, an average of better than 40 per season.

During that stretch of seasons, Lewiston also won a league title, earning the 2007 President’s Cup following a 50-win, 106-point campaign. The Maineiacs have rattled off 208 wins in those same six seasons, but spent each of the past two seasons in the playoffs as the No. 16 overall seed and a relative doormat to Drummondville in early-round, divisional play. The disparity in playoff experience between the two clubs is striking.

“We have to match their intensity,” Houle said. “Yes we do have skill, and yes we can put the puck in the net. But if you don’t have the hard work, it doesn’t matter. The work ethic and the discipline will be very important for us.”

But experience can only bring you so far. The rest, they say, depends on the talent at hand.

And there is plenty to go around — on both sides.

Goaltending

The Wildcats feature a familiar face in the cage, though Jordan Kennedy may not get much time between the pipes for the Wildcats in the playoffs. The former Lewiston netminder, who was part of the Kirill Kabanov trade back in October, has played in a handful of games for Moncton this season. But it has been the duo of Steve Gleeson and Brandon Thibeau that has carried Moncton most of the way down the stretch. Thibeau, a 17-year-old rookie, and Gleeson, an unseasoned veteran who suited up briefly last season for the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL, have traded places lately.

Speaking of trading places, the Maineiacs have seen the emergence of 17-year-old Russian keeper Andrey Makarov during the second half of the season as a viable alternative to 20-year-old Nick Champion. Both goaltenders struggled a bit down the stretch, but both turned in solid performances in the season’s final weekend as Lewiston readied for the playoffs.

“I think it was definitely a good way to end the season,” Champion said of his shutout win over Baie-Comeau last Friday. “I’m looking to carry over that confidence and that feeling into the playoffs.”

Of the five goaltenders on the two teams’ rosters, Champion had the best numbers this season, posting the most wins (27), best goals against average (2.83), and best save percentage (.897), while tying Makarov for the most shutouts (2). He’s also looking for a measure of revenge. Moncton was the team that last season ended Champion’s run while he was playing for Rouyn-Noranda.

“The big advantage in that is knowing what to expect,” Champion said. “It’s a lot faster game in the playoffs, it’s a bit more intense and you have to be better prepared. You have to be ready to go and just play your game.”

Defense

There’s little doubt that Moncton has perhaps the best individual defenseman in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League on its roster in Brandon Gormley.

Drafted first overall by the Wildcats in the 2008 QMJHL Entry Draft, Gormley was then drafted 13th overall in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft by the Phoenix Coyotes in 2010. The 18-year-old blueliner was limited to 47 games this year due to an injury he suffered in a game in Lewiston, an injury that also caused him to miss this year’s World Junior Championships. He still put up 13 goals and 35 assists. Moncton’s depth on the blue line also includes Simon Jodoin and Daniel Milan, both of whom scored better than 30 points this season, but both of whom also ended up on the minus side of the plus/minus ratio, as did Gormley.

That’s where Lewiston’s back end differed. No single defenseman finished the season in the minus while skating with Lewiston, and the team’s top pairing — Sam Finn and Sam Carrier — finished a combined plus-81.

“It will be nice to have Sam Finn back (from an upper-body injury),” Houle said. “I think over the last 10 or 11 games, especially against the top teams in the league, we really saw how much we missed him.”

Lewiston’s Olivier Dame-Malka is the top scoring defenseman in the series, with 16 goals and 39 assists during the regular season, and rookie Dillon Fournier appears primed to get some playoff experience early, along with the team’s most-improved player, Ian Saab and Lewiston’s fourth-best plus/minus defenseman, Zach Shannon.

Offense

Moncton’s forward group begins with the twins, Alex and Allain Saulnier. They, along with Marek Hrivik, combined for 94 of the team’s 232 goals scored during the regular season, while another Memorial Cup veteran, Daniel Pettersson added 24, meaning four players combined for better than 50 percent of the Wildcats’ total offense.

“I know both Saulniers pretty well, I know what they like and don’t like,” Lewiston captain and Moncton resident Cameron Critchlow said. “They’re not set in stone, they’re not robots, they’re pretty creative and it’s going to be a tough job to stop them. As long as we can stay with them and play the body on them all night, we should be able to hopefully slow them down.”

Lewiston scoring was much more spread out — beyond Etienne Brodeur’s explosion of 53 goals, that is. While six Moncton forwards hit the 10-goal mark this season, the Maineiacs boast 11 different forwards with at least 10 goals, led by Brodeur’s 53.

Special teams, injuries and coaching

Beyond the standard three facets of a hockey team are the intangibles. How well a team performs while down a player, while up a player, or without a particular player all together can have as much bearing on a playoff series as anything.

The Moncton/Lewiston matchup is no different.

And the dichotomy of the special teams units in the series is intriguing.

The Maineiacs’ power play was ranked just 13th overall in the 18-team league, but the Wildcats’ penalty kill was rated the same.

On the other side of the puck, the Moncton power play, with the Saulniers and Hrivik working their magic with extra room on the ice, was the second-best power play in the QMJHL this season, while the Maineiacs’ PK finished at No. 6 overall in the league. Brodeur led the league this season in shorthanded goals with nine.

On the injury front, both teams were hit with the bug pretty hard this season. Lewiston has been without defenseman Zach Evans-Renaud since December, when he had season-ending surgery. Forward Cole Hawes battled an assortment of injuries throughout the year for Lewiston, and will also be out of the lineup for the entire postseason.

Sam Finn missed the final eleven games of the year with an upper body injury, but is expected to return to the lineup this weekend.

“At one point we had four starters or guys who play a lot injured and out,” Houle said. “It’s nice in playoffs right now to have the ability to dress the best possible roster we can put on the ice.”

The Wildcats may be without two of their top centers, as Alex Saulnier and Ted Stephens were both victims of hits from behind late in the campaign. Saulnier has been out four games since taking his hit from PEI’s Philippe Paradis, while Stephens has missed five games since being hit by Christophe Losier of Acadie-Bathurst.

In the matter of coaching, Flynn has been behind the bench with Moncton for the team’s two President’s Cup titles, one as an associate coach and last season as the head coach. Lewiston’s Houle is in his second go-around in the playoffs with the team, and has just completed his first full season as a QMJHL head coach.