LEWISTON — For the first period of Friday night’s rivalry game with Lewiston, Edward Little had an answer for the Blue Devils’ superior speed, puck control and firepower, in junior goalie Ben Feldman.

But few goalies, if any, are able to fend off the amount of pressure Lewiston brings on a nightly basis. The Blue Devils ultimately overwhelmed Feldman and the Red Eddies with a four-goal second period in a 6-0 win at Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

Joe Bisson had two goals — one a man down and one a man up — and an assist to lead the Blue Devils (3-0).

Feldman made several spectacular stops for EL (1-3) in a physical and fast-paced first period.

“You’ve got to take your hat off to the kid. We put a lot of pucks on net and he came up big for them and kept them in the game for the first period,” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said.

“He struggled in the first couple of games, and I pulled him. I have no complaints about him tonight,” Edward Little coach Brett Barrett said.

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It took an equally spectacular effort by Bisson to finally get Lewiston on the board with a short-handed goal at 11:06 of the first. The junior skated in to Feldman’s left and launched an off-balance, backhanded shot inside the post to make it 1-0.

“We were on the penalty kill and I had nothing to lose,” Bisson said. “I wheeled it around the neutral zone and skated around a couple of players, and I was lucky enough to put it in.”

“Joe’s got a lot of speed and he was able to get to the outside and come back in and put one in,” Belleau said.

The Red Eddies put their best foot forward to start the second period, putting their best pressure of the stanza on Lewiston goalie Jacob Strout in the early stages.

Lewiston withstood the advance and wasted little time seizing momentum as Sam Frechette made it 2-0 at 1:27.

“We just focused on getting more shots and controlling the puck in the offensive zone,” Bisson said. “Our main goal is puck possession and we wanted to really outskate them and really push them in the offensive zone. That’s what we did and we generated some points there.”

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Dustin Larochelle found the back of the net at 8:25 and Jaromey Rancourt made it a deluge with a redirect 61 seconds later. Bisson capped the period at 10:54 with his second goal, and the Devils’ first power-play tally, off a nice pass by Rancourt for a 5-0 lead.

“I try to be honest with these kids. They’re a much better hockey team,” Barrett said of Lewiston. “We’re not there yet, but we’re getting better. We took some penalties tonight and we’ve been struggling with that a little bit. We’re moving forward, but if we eliminate some of those penalties, especially the ones in the neutral zone, which aren’t really acceptable, we can be a good hockey team.”

Cole Ouellette got on the board with a one-timer at 3:11 of the third to cap the scoring.

“When you’re playing EL, they have a lot of pride, a lot of tradition,” said Belleau, who coached the Red Eddies to back-to-back state titles in 2003-04. “Those kids want to work hard. When they come to this rink, they want to give it their best effort. We expect that, so we try to prepare our kids the best we can. We tell them to play their game, and I thought the kids responded well, particularly in the second period.”

“It’s always exciting to beat them,” Bisson said.


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