LEWISTON – The Shawinigan Cataractes certainly didn’t play like one of the top teams in the Canadian Hockey League on Sunday.

But they played well enough to defeat the Lewiston Maineiacs – barely.

Maxime Legault and Nicholas Petersen scored goals 1:24 apart in the third period to erase a one-goal deficit and escape the Androscoggin Bank Colisee with a 4-2 win over the Lewiston Maineiacs in front of 2,493.

“We’ve done that a couple of times, where we’ve stopped for a couple, three minutes,” Lewiston coach Don MacAdam said. “It’s a mental thing. Teams get goals, don’t worry about it, suck it up and play better.”

That lapse – and the loss – aside, MacAdam was still pleased with the team’s overall effort.

“Our penalty-killing was very good against the best power play in the league, we could have created a little bit more offensively, but overall, I thought we played a real solid game,” MacAdam said.

The win helped the Cataractes keep pace, at least for now, with Telus Central division-leading Drummondville, which ended Rimouski’s 17-game winning streak Sunday with a 5-4 win.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that much now,” Shawinigan coach Eric Veilleux said. “Dropping that game to Quebec, I don’t know what happened there. It’s going to be tough to try and catch them now.”

The Maineiacs, meanwhile, continue to fight for their playoff lives. They began Sunday even with Val d’Or for the league’s 16th and final playoff spot. A loss, combined with a Val d’Or loss, left both teams none the worse for wear. Baie-Comeau clinched the 15th playoff spot with a win over Montreal.

“Val d’Or’s down by two with 1:32 left,” MacAdam said with a wry smile immediately following the game. “But who’s scoreboard watching?”

In Sunday’s game in Lewiston, the Maineiacs surprised the Cataractes in the opening period, sending in the forwards in waves as the Cats appeared to be back on their heels a bit.

The relentless pressure last the entire period, during which the Maineiacs managed 17 shots at Shawinigan netminder Gabriel Girard.

“They came out flying, shooting pucks from everywhere, kind of like Drummondville does,” Veilleux said. “When you get pucks at the net, you get rebounds and you get scoring chances out of it. That’s how they play. They played a really good game.”

The Maineiacs also got a goal for their efforts when Max Gratchev notched his 30th of the campaign at 9:30 on a seemingly innocent wrister from the right circle. The puck squeezed through the space between Girard’s right arm and his body.

On the other end, Adrien Lemay was rarely tested, but was effective when necessary, stopping all seven shots he faced.

The teams traded goals in the second, 40 seconds apart.

Tomy Dery netted just his second of the season on an easier-than-it-should-have-been end-to-end rush at 2:33, and the Cataractes cut the lead back in half at 3:13 on a Simon Lacroix goal, the Shawinigan captain’s 11th of the season.

“One of the things we talk about on the bench all the time is that we want a great shift after scoring a goal,” MacAdam said. “We didn’t have that. That’s a momentum, a mental thing.”

Lewiston has two games remaining on its schedule, both at home, beginning Friday night against Baie-Comeau. The Maineiacs face Chicoutimi in their final home game on Sunday.