LEWISTON — Scarborough head coach Norm Gagne didn’t have an explanation for his players. His team did everything it need to do in order to win. Everything, that is, but beat St. Dom’s goalie Grant Carrier.

Carrier stopped all 33 shots he faced to lead the Saints to a 1-0 victory at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“We threw everything but the kitchen sink,” Gagne said. “(Carrier) came up big. I told the kids, ‘I can’t see any faults, except we needed to get traffic in front of the net.’ We did, but we missed a few opportunities. We couldn’t buy a goal. I told the kids I am proud of the way we played.”

The Saints knew coming into the season their goaltending is going to win the team some games.

“Obviously coming into the season, we knew we had goaltending,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said. “Tonight that was the deciding factor. Certainly it wasn’t our forecheck and it certainly wasn’t our play in the defensive zone.”

The Saints started out slowly in the first period as the Red Storm out shot them 6-3, but they went into the locker room with the lead. There was a scrum in front Scarborough keeper Dalton Finley’s net and Kyle Holtet was the last St. Dom’s player to touch the puck as it rolled into the net. Will Desmarais and Caleb Labrie were credited with the assists at the 12:45 mark.

“One thing I do have to say, even in the first game, the first three goals we got we were strong in front of the net,” Ouellete said. “That’s how we got this goal tonight, and we almost had a second one that was bouncing around.”

The second period was all Scarborough as the Red Storm peppered 13 shots on Carrier, but the Saints’ goaltender was calm, cool, and collected as he made all 13 saves. St. Dom’s struggled to get pucks on net, whether it was missed opportunities on a breakaway, or careless passes that were intercepted by the Red Storm.

“I’ve said this for a while we are still young back there,” Ouellette said of his defensemen. “They are still learning some of those guys; some are playing bigger minutes than before. We will get there.”

The Red Storm called timeout with 2:26 remaining in the contest, but couldn’t get the goaltender off for the extra man at the end of the game.

“I moved (Nick) Bagley up to forward,” Gagne said. “He’s a goal scorer. We tried to put a little more pressure. We didn’t get the puck down low. We stress that to get that sixth man we need to get the puck down low.”

Ouellette was making sure his team was ready for the final few minutes.

“(Gagne) had his big line ready to go, but at that point I was more worried about who we had ready to go.” Ouellette said.

Both teams were 0-for-1 on the power play. Dalton Smith made 11 saves in the losing effort.