LEWISTON — Bleary-eyed and yawning, the Lewiston Maineiacs stepped off the team bus Saturday morning at about 5.

The younger players helped the staff unload the bus and weave it to the locker room through a maze of circus equipment stored in the back hallway of the Androscoggin Bank Colisee, while the rest of them collected pillows, iPods, books and bags and trudged to their cars.

After a double-overtime loss to the Montreal Junior in Game 5 on Friday, the Maineiacs returned home immediately. Given the late arrival, and that the team will appear in a fourth game in six nights on Sunday in game 6 of the series, the players got a day off Saturday.

“We get in at almost 6 a.m., then 24 hours later you have a practice and then a game, it’s tough,” Lewiston coach J.F. Houle said. “It’s probably going to be an optional practice, with the intention on conserving our energy for the game.”

It’s a game the Maineiacs want to win, but they are stopping short of calling the contest a “must win.”

After Friday’s contest in Montreal, Junior coach Pascal Vincent was quick to assert that the pressure in the teams’ best-of-seven second round series had shifted entirely to Lewiston.

“For us, this was Game 7,” Vincent said following the Junior’s 5-4 OT win. “I know maybe Lewiston didn’t feel the pressure (Friday), but they have to feel the pressure now. I am a hundred percent sure they don’t want to come back here for Tuesday’s game. Next game may be number six stats-wise, but for them, it’s Game 7, just like it is for us.”

Saturday, a day removed from a second overtime loss in the series, Houle wasn’t buying it. Neither, he said, is his team.

“It would nice to win it at home, but we were the underdog and we’re still the underdog,” Houle said. “They’re a team that has thirteen 19-year-olds. They’re the oldest team in the league. When you’re older like that, you’re the team that’s supposed to win it. For us, we just play another game, and hope to win it.”

To do so, the Maineiacs will have to avoid periods like the second frame on Friday. After defensively dominating the first and outshooting the Junior 8-2, Lewiston fell asleep at the switch in the second. Montreal outshot Lewiston 19-3 and controlled play in all three zones.

“I thought they won the foot races in that period, that’s the one period I thought, it was probably our worst period since the series started,” Houle said. “But we bounced back nice in the third period. We’re a resilient team. We have a bad period, we bounce back with a good period. We have a bad game, we bounce back with a good game. That’s just the makeup of our team.”

Changes may be afoot in the lineup after the loss Friday, though, depending on what the staff sees at Sunday morning’s practice, and any medical reports from any bumps and bruises the players sustained in Game 5.

“We’ll figure that out in the morning,” Houle said. “Honestly, we don’t know right now.”

Another potential stumbling block for Lewiston on Sunday is Montreal keeper Jean-Francois Berube, who made several highlight-reel quality saves Friday to allow the Junior to remain afloat in the first and third periods.

“He made some big saves in the first, and he made that huge save in the third on Brodeur back door,” Houle said. “That’s the save that sticks out in my mind. But we’ve scored our share of goals against him in the series, so we’re going to keep shooting on him.”

Lewiston’s power play continues to be dominant, and has been one of the biggest reasons the Maineiacs still hold a 3-2 series lead. Olivier Dame-Malka has exploded during the playoffs for eight goals, many of them on the power play.

“It’s a power play, and one guy has to be open,” Houle said. “If you start working the down low, like on (Kirill) Kabanov’s goal (Friday), then they collapse down and Dame-Malka is open. If you start working Malka, maybe Kabanov is open. It’s 5-on-4, somebody has to be open.”

Aside from any potential lineup changes, though, Houle doesn’t expect any tweaks to the team’s overall game plan.

“Nothing much different has to happen,” Houle said. “The two games Montreal won were in overtime, so we just have to keep working hard. Good things happen when you work hard. We’re not going to change much, we just have to find a way to win.”