LEWISTON — There was no sound at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee during the day Thursday but for the hum of the generators, the occasional slamming door and footsteps of rink employees.

During the part of the day when the Lewiston Maineiacs usually carve up the ice for practice, only a clean sheet of frozen water greeted the eyes.

Home late Wednesday (early Thursday, actually) after a thrilling overtime victory in Moncton on Wednesday night, Lewiston’s coaching staff gave the players a well-deserved break.

When the team hits the ice for practice on what is projected to be a snowy Friday morning, though, it will be back to business as usual. Ahead three games to one in their best-of-seven, first-round playoff series against the Moncton Wildcats, the Maineiacs can close out the playoff series at home Friday night with another victory.

“The guys are excited about the win (Wednesday), but they know we still have a lot to do to close this out,” Lewiston coach J.F. Houle said. “It would be nice to close it out at home and not have to travel to Moncton again, but only hard work is going to allow us to do that.”

Key to the Maineiacs’ success in Games 2, 3 and 4 has been the team’s ability to successfully deal with the vaunted Moncton power play, rated second-best in the league in the regular season.

“We’ve been getting momentum from our penalty-killers,” Houle said. “Doing such a good job killing penalties can give you momentum. We’ve killed four 5-on-3s this series so far. But it going to be important for us to be disciplined. We’ve talked about it. We haven’t done that great of a job, but out PK has been good.”

Skating 5-on-5, though, the Maineiacs have been the more confident — and more successful — team.

“Any time we’ve played a whole period, or almost all of one, at 5-on-5, we’ve limited their shots,” Houle said. “If you look at the series, any periods we didn’t take a penalty, they didn’t get more than 10 shots. I think out 5-on-5 defense has done a good job, and our goalie (Nick Champion) has made some big saves.”

Lewiston’s success has also come without a valuable member of the team in the lineup. Antoine Houde-Caron served the third and final game of his suspension for an elbow to the head of a Moncton player in Game 1 on Wednesday. Houle doesn’t anticipate any delay in the 20-year-old defensive forward’s return to the lineup.

“He provides us with a lot of energy,” Houle said. “He’s a good leader, a 20-year-old, he’ll have a spot in there somewhere, just because of the energy he brings.”

Houle has juggled other parts of the lineup, though, most notably on defense, with Dillon Fournier and Ian Saab each spending some time in the stands instead of on the bench. The rest of the defenders, Houle said, have been nothing short of solid.

“All of our ‘D’ have played well,” Houle said. “Saab’s played well; he’s been a presence out there physically. Fournier can skate, but he’s only 16. He still makes mistakes, but we still want to give him some playoff experience. Shannon has been played very well for us. It’s the best three games in a row he’s played. We need that from our defensemen to win.”

Game 4 also saw the awakening of the team’s top offensive players. Held without a goal in the first three games, Etienne Brodeur, Pierre-Olivier Morin and Kirill kabanov broke out of their slumps in a big way Wednesday, accounting for all four goals in the team’s overtime victory.

“I think it’s normal in the first round of the playoffs, a guy or two who’ve had such a good year might struggle at first,” Houle said. “The other team knows that player has been good and they try to match their best defensemen against them. It’s a lot of strategy.”

And while the weather may affect the teams’ ability to get to and from the rink on time for practice, it won’t likely have any bearing on the game itself. Moncton was scheduled to arrive in Maine on Thursday, with the league’s officials likely on the same plan. Faceoff for Game 5 is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Colisee.

“Mental preparation is going to be key for this game,” Houle said. “We have to make sure we put the foot on the pedal, we have to make sure we don’t stop skating. We have to do everything right and play a good solid 60 minutes and play as hard as we can.”