The defending Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champions and this year’s No. 9 seed fell behind early, but rallied behind a fallen teammate for three unanswered goals to claim the first game in their best-of-seven playoff opener against the Lewiston Maineiacs, 3-1, in front of 1,653 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Friday.

“We knew that they’re an immensely talented team,” Moncton coach Danny Flynn said. “To be able to scratch the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft and the third overall pick from last year, you know they’re a deep and talented team. We knew we had to come out and try and limit their offensive chances. We were fortunate tonight we were able to clog up the middle and make sure they didn’t have a whole lot of point-blank scoring chances.”

The loss is particularly stinging for the Maineiacs, who have failed to advance out of the first round of the playoffs since 2007, and have done so just one other time.

“We have to regroup,” Maineiacs’ coach J.F Houle said. “I think we need to settle down and realize this is a series and not just one game. We need to put this one out of our minds and play the next game.”

The game was marred early by a crunching hit in the center zone that turned into a 20-minute game delay. Less than 20 seconds after Lewiston scored the game’s first goal, Moncton forward Scott Trask relayed a pass from his own zone through center. After releasing the puck, Lewiston’s Etienne Brodeur barreled into Trask, shoulder to shoulder, and sent the startled Moncton forward airborn. Trask smacked the boards head first, collapsed to the ice and began convulsing. It took a team of more than 10 paramedics, athletic trainers and others nearly 20 minutes to help Trask onto a stretcher and off the ice. Trask was then transported to Central Maine Medical Center.

“It’s at a point where the league has to decide if it wants to fix this or not,” Flynn said. “How many times does this have to happen? I know it’s a complicated problem and players have to respect each other. But how many more times do kids have to get badly hurt before we decide we have to fix this?”

“From the bench, it looked like a clean hit, it was just a bad landing,” Houle said. “We feel bad that it happened that way.”

Moncton, riding a wave of emotion and benefiting from an ensuing five-minute major power play, evened the score at 12:25 of the first when Alex Saulnier fired a slapper through traffic from the top of the right circle and beat Champion blocker side.

“When you’re a team like we are where we don’t have a lot of firepower throughout the lineup, it’s important we do well on the power play,” Flynn said. “We practice it a lot. Some days, it looks like we never practice it, and some days it looks like it’s one of the best around. I thought we did a real good job tonight.”

The Wildcats continued to pressure Lewiston, force penalties and took command of the contest from there.

“It was tough to watch happen,” Houle said. “And it was tough on our players to lose Brodeur after that. He’s such a big asset to our team, his speed, his goal-scoring ability. It was tough for our players to get going after that.”

Both goaltenders were in the game early, and both flashed brilliance all game long.

Brandon Thibeau, the Wildcats’ 17-year-old rookie, stiffed Sam Henley and Stefan Fournier in tight early in the first to keep the Maineiacs off the sheet, and Lewiston’s Nick Champion was stellar during multiple minutes of penalty kill time in the first and second, moving well from side to side to turn back a host of players.

“I thought Nick Champion made some big saves on the power play, and I thought (Thideau) made some big saves,” Houle said. “We were knocking on the door a couple of times right in front and we couldn’t score.”

Lewiston hit the score sheet first.

Jess Tanguy floated a wobbler toward the cage from the top of the right circle on a rush through center and into the zone. The puck appeared to deflect off of something in front. It hit Thibeau in the shoulder and caromed into the cage for a 1-0 Lewiston advantage just past the midway point of the first frame.

After the Moncton power play and goal, the Wildcats wrested momentum from the Maineiacs early in the second frame again when Olivier Dame-Malka went to the penalty box for a pair of infractions, one each for slashing and roughing. Though Moncton failed to score on the four-minute man advantage, Lewiston was back on its heels.

Dame-Malka did not play a shift the remainder of the game.

“It’s not the first time, we sat him in a game earlier on this year,” Houle said. “We talked about coming into these playoffs with discipline, and he took a bad penalty. If you’re not going to play for the team, then you don’t deserve to play.”

Moncton did take the lead, though, when Daniel Milan wobbled the puck through a crowd in front of Champion. The puck had eyes as it fluttered through five pairs of legs and beat Champion low glove.

Lewiston earned its first power play of the game with less than two minutes to play in the second. The Maineiacs failed to score in the 1:32 of power play time in the second, and again in the 28-second carryover in the third.

Moncton capped the scoring when rookie Ryan Penny capitalized on a turnover in front of the Lewiston net.

Another minor skirmish broke out late in the third as tempers flared. Ian Saab of Lewiston and Marek Hrivik from Moncton were ejected for fighting in the final five minutes of regulation.

The same two teams will battle Saturday at 7 p.m. in Game 2 of the teams’ best of seven playoff series at the Colisee.