It took just 17 seconds for EL’s Jason Cote to put a bit hit on a Lewiston player in the corner, drawing a five-minute major for hitting from behind, as well as a misconduct to go with it.
“That hurts,” EL coach Brett Barrett said. “Not only a five-minute penalty, I got that kid in the box for the whole period.”
The Blue Devils (12-1) needed just 91 seconds to take advantage of the power play. Joe Bisson fed Jeromey Rancourt, who rang a shot from the left circle off the crossbar and in.
Rancourt scored again before Cote’s penalty was up, but his second goal was during 4-on-4 play thanks to Lewiston’s only penalty of the game.
“We want to make a concerted effort to stay out of the penalty box, be disciplined, maintain our composure,” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said.
The Blue Devils showed they could score during 5-on-5 play as well. Cole Ouellette and Nick and Joe Bisson all scored before the end of the first period to put Lewiston up 5-0.
“We’re a skating team, we’re a fast team, and a lot of teams like to hit us and have us play their game,” Joe Bisson said. “But for the most part this whole season we’ve been skating. We’re a very fast team, so we just tried to stay out of all that.”
Bisson scored less than five minutes into the second to start the scoring back up for the Blue Devils, and added two more goals in the third.
“My teammates were giving me the puck, and I was just in the right place at the time and was able to put it in,” Bisson said. “But it was mostly we were moving the puck around and I got lucky at times.”
Ouellette joined Rancourt and Bisson as Lewiston players with multiple goals. All three players are captains.
“Those guys put the puck in the net for us, so it’s always good to see that happening,” Belleau said. “It usually means we’re going to have some success.”
Cody Doyon scored on a second-period power play, and Sam Frechette rounded out the scoring for Lewiston.
“We talked about basically trying to work on putting together a complete game — start strong, finish strong, maintain our composure, stay out of the box,” Belleau said.
Despite the overwhelming number of goals for Lewiston, Ben Feldman was solid in net for the Red Eddies (4-8), stopping 42 of 53 shots.
“Every single shot was from the pucks to the goal line,” Barrett said. “You can’t expect him to make all those saves.”
“He played well. The score doesn’t reflect how well he played,” Belleau said.
For Lewiston, Conrad Albert got a rarer start, and made the most of it by stopping all 12 shots he faced.
“Albert’s playing great,” Joe Bisson said. “Three varsity starts, three shutouts.”
While the Blue Devils can look forward to their final six games of the regular season, and however many playoff games after that, the Red Eddies have to try to pick up the pieces after dropping another game to their rivals. Saturday’s rout follows a 6-0 loss earlier in the season, and EL has now been outscored 25-0 in its past three games.
“We have a young team, and we got to learn some things,” Barrett said. “This is partly about becoming young men. You take your lumps, you pick your head up and you move forward.”
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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