LEWISTON — The Lewiston Blue Devils found itself in penalty trouble against Bangor on Wednesday night, particularly in the second third periods.
The Rams didn’t capitalize on their opportunities and fell to the Blue Devils 6-2 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee
Bangor went 1-for-7 on the power play. Lewiston, which improves to 8-0 with the win, was 1-for 3 on the man advantage.
Drew St. Hilaire scored two goals for Lewiston, and Owen Cox added a goal and two assists.
“We played, I thought, OK. We looked like we were off for a week, we didn’t play this weekend.” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said. “We were a little sloppy in our passes and a little slow in our decision-making, their goalie made some big saves, he’s a big boy out there. But we weathered the storm.”
Lewiston’s game against Falmouth that was scheduled for last Saturday was postponed to Jan. 27.
The Blue Devils took a 1-0 lead on its fifth shot of the game. Drew St. Hilaire jammed home a loose puck in the crease that squirted through Bangor goalie Jake Hirsch’s legs a little past the two-minute mark of the opening period. Joey Gendron made the initial shot from the point.
“There were some good screens by my teammates in front of the net; they did their part,” St. Hilaire said.
Bangor (5-4) tied the game on a nice 2-on-1 on which Aidan Scripture fed Dave Brown, who put the shot on Lewiston goalie Keegan McLaughlin (18 saves). McLaughlin didn’t control the rebound, and Scripture put home the puck 4:47 into the first.
“Overall, I thought we played some of our better hockey in the first period,” Bangor coach Quinn Paradis said. “Obviously, the power play, it didn’t work for us tonight.”
The second period was slow until both teams started going to the box. Bangor’s Jacob Monroe was sent off for interference. Thirty seconds into the Blue Devils’ power play, Lewiston’s Brock Bergeron was called for cross checking. The Rams then had a 5-on-3 power play when Lewiston’s Ryan Pomerleau went off for roughing.
Bangor couldn’t find the back of the net during the two-man advantage.
“Our (penalty kill) has been good all year,” Belleau said. “We got a lot of speed, we try to get sticks in passing lanes and we have good structure most of the time, we (make good) reads. I am glad. But we can’t control refs and sometimes (the calls) don’t go our way and we need to figure out ways to get better. We got to understand and appreciate the flow of the game and how things are going — how decisions are being made and play accordingly.”
Lewiston caught a break when a shot by Owen Cox hit a Rams defender right in the chest and deflected into the net past Hirsch (37 saves) to give the Blue Devils a 2-1 lead.
“We were just trying to get pucks in the net and everything we could do to win,” Cox said.
Eight seconds after Lewiston’s Kurtis Pelletier, who had an assist on Cox’s goal, went to the box for interference, Pomerleau scored a short-handed breakaway off a feed from Cox to make the lead 3-1 with 1:09 remaining in the middle frame.
“(Owen is) a leader on the defensive side, he’s a senior, a strong kid, a good athlete,” Belleau said. “Pomerleau is a captain. You need your seniors to lead, your big players need to show up in big games and big situations, and they did there.”
Bangor struggled to bounce back from Lewiston’s third goal
“The last (goal) in the second period, the 3-1 goal, that’s what hurt us, and we never recovered from that point forward,” Paradis said. “They are a good team, we knew it was going to be a dog fight, but we didn’t give enough at certain times, and penalty trouble got us at the end.”
The third period opened up with Bergeron sending a drop pass to Logan Tripp, who skated into the right circle and sent the puck into the top corner of the net to give Lewiston a 4-1 lead.
Bangor had a five-minute major power play after Cox was called for boarding. Early in the major, Bangor’s Jack Perron was called for tripping and the teams played 4-on-4 for two minutes. When Bangor got back on the power play, McLaughlin stonewalled them.
The Rams finally scored on the man advantage with Pomerleau in the box. Zach Burpee’s shot from the right half wall hit off a couple skates and slid past McLauglin with about four minutes to play in the game.
Goals by Michael Belleau and St. Hilaire on the power play 16 seconds apart late in the third period capped the scoring for Lewiston.
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