LEWISTON — What’s in a surgery?

Not much, apparently, if you’re Grant Carrier.

Staked to a two-goal advantage to begin the third period, and already with 20 saves, the St. Dom’s junior goaltender saved his best work for when it mattered the most, stopping 17 of the 18 shots he saw in the final frame to preserve for the Saints a 3-2 victory over the rival Lewiston Blue Devils in front of a raucous crowd at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Thursday in the teams’ first meeting of the season.

“A week ago he’s having surgery, and (Thursday) he’s stopping pucks,” Saints coach Steve Ouellette said. “Grant has more of a technically sound kind of style. He takes up a lot of room, like some of the other goalies we’ve been facing lately, and he played a very solid game.”

Carrier was outstanding, particularly in the closing minutes for the Saints.

It was also a sweet result for revenge-minded St. Dom’s, which lost all three meetings against Lewiston last season, including in the Eastern Class A regional final.

“They were a powerhouse last year. They were loaded,” Ouellette said. “We’re here to live and die with the guys we’ve got, and it looks like we’ll live with being in some pretty close games.”

It wasn’t all bad for Lewiston, considering the absence of the 12 seniors that dominated last season’s roster.

“On the good side, for a team that lost 12 seniors, I think we played well,” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said. “On the other side, we took way too many penalties. In one breath I’m telling the boys how well they played, and in the next breath, I have to tell them that’s not Lewiston hockey, we took too many penalties.”

The see-sawing began in the opening frame, and had a lot of help from both teams’ power plays.

Desmond Gagne scored the game’s first goal and gave the Blue Devils the early lead when he recovered after bobbling the puck at the right post on a hard pass from Patrick DeBlois at the top of the left circle on a power play.

The Saints regained the momentum about four minutes later when Cody Rodrigue tipped the puck past Lewiston keeper Evan Bourassa on a shot by Will Desmarais with the teams skating 4-on-4.

Another Lewiston penalty resulted ultimately in a 5-on-3 for the Saints. They didn’t score then, but after it reverted to a 5-on-4, Cam Hainey seized the lead for St. Dom’s with an end-to-end rush capped by a flip into the cage.

“I don’t think we had a power-play goal yet on the year, so to get two, that was big,” Ouellette said.

Lewiston started well again in the second period, and the intensity of the game picked up, with both teams delivering crushing hit after crushing hit.

St. Dom’s delivered the biggest blow of the middle frame, though, on the scoreboard.

Zack DeBlois fired the puck through traffic with the Saints again on the power play on a feed across from Danny Nadeau. The puck had eyes and bounded through the gaggle of legs and sticks in front, beating Bourassa low on the glove-hand side for a two-goal St. Dom’s advantage.

“Our defensive zone coverage was where we wanted it to be. They capitalized on a power play or two, and that’s what made the difference,” Belleau said.

The third period saw a marked advantage for the Blue Devils, who ratcheted up the pressure out of the gate.

“We knew we had to press a little bit and generate some offense,” Belleau said. “We did. We capitalized on one opportunity and had our fair share of some others. Their goaltender played well.”

The one the Blue Devils did sneak past Carrier in the third frame was a Brandon Tiner shot from the right circle after a shot hit a Saints’ defender in the arm while they attempted to kill a penalty.