For a short while – well, for five minutes and 50 seconds, anyway – the Lewiston Maineiacs silenced an otherwise raucous crowd at the Marcel Dionne Centre on Friday, a crowd so loud, it drowned out radio and Webcast announcers on several occasions.

Max Gratchev shocked the home crowd with a power-play goal less than two minutes into the game, but the Drummondville Voltigeurs responded in kind at 5:50 and added another at even strength later in the first.

They never trailed again.

Yannick Riendeau continued his mastery over Lewiston with five points, Hike Hoffman registered four goals, and noted Maineiac-killer Dany Masse added five more points to lift the top-seeded Volts to a 12-3 win over the Maineiacs in front of 2,734 in Game 1 of the teams’ best-of-seven playoff series.

“One of the things we talked about coming into this series was discipline,” Lewiston coach Don MacAdam said. “We would have had to score seven just to beat their power play. That’s not giving us much of a chance to win.”

Adrien Lemay started in goal for Lewiston and performed admirably, despite the score, stopping 46 of 58 shots in the loss. Lemay was peppered early and often, and was sharp all night.

“They must have got three or four of their power-play goals on rebounds,” MacAdam said. “Lemay was holding it there, and the defenseman couldn’t tie up the players or move the puck out of the way … I wasn’t very pleased with the defense (Friday).”

Drummondville, meanwhile, started a bit slowly, perhaps feeling a bit of extra pride after receiving three trophies during a pre-game ceremony, including the Jean Rougeau Trophy as the league’s regular-season champion.

“I didn’t even pump these guys up before the game because I knew they were ready to go,” Drummondville coach Guy Boucher said. “They were almost too ready, and it showed early in the game.”

Gratchev caught Drummondville keeper Marco Cousineau napping early with a power play goal from six feet on a feed from the left halfboard by Danick Paquette.

Masse notched his first of the playoffs at 5:50, shoving the puck past Lemay through traffic in front. Riendeau’s goal, a nifty tip-in on a Marc-Antoine Desnoyers shot at 13:54 put the Volts on top for good.

Drummondville and its power play unit exploded in the second. The Volts scored four more times – three times with an extra skater – and held Lewiston to just one more to take a commanding four-goal lead.

The Maineiacs did have a goal waved off due to goaltender interference that would have made things a bit more interesting, and one of the Volts’ power play goals came on a delay of game penalty that officials mistakenly called after missing the puck deflecting off the glass.

“There’s no doubt that was the turning point in the game,” MacAdam said.

“They get that goal, it’s a whole different game,” Boucher agreed. “This could have been a tight, tight game, and that’s what we expect (Saturday) from them, too. They can play us tough, they did that once before this season here.”

That didn’t matter in the third, when Drummondville unloaded for six more goals to one for Lewiston on an Alex Beaton power play tally.

The same two teams meet again Saturday night in Game 2 of the best-of-seven series. Games 3 and 4 are at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Tuesday and Wednesday.