LEWISTON – The boos were few and far between.

But they were there.

Jonathan Bernier, the Lewiston Maineiacs’ franchise goaltender who has a world junior gold medal and four games of NHL regular-season experience under his belt, heard them.

He had just given up his seventh goal of the night against Acadie-Bathurst at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

Since that day, Bernier has played in nine games. He’s allowed just 15 goals, and his save percentage is around 95 percent.

“Nobody’s booing him now, are they?” Maineiacs’ head coach Ed Harding said with a smile. “To be honest with you, I got on him a little bit, too. We had an understanding, he knew I was behind him, but everybody has a bad day at work. You have a bad day, I have a bad day, too.”

Now, there is no more room for a bad day.

Even Bernier understands that.

“I had a weird season,” Bernier admitted. “I was all over the place. When I came back, I wasn’t feeling like I was playing my game. When I looked up one day, there were 10 games left or something and I said, ‘Geez that’s really close to playoffs,’ so I just started doing everything like I usually do in the playoffs. I get ready and focus more before the game, be ready and focus for 60 minutes.”

Weird is an apt adjective for Bernier’s topsy-turvy schedule. Last last summer, he represented Canada in the Canada-Russia Super Series. He went from there to the Los Angeles Kings’ training camp, and accompanied the team to London for their season-opening series with the Anaheim Ducks.

He started one of those games and earned his first career NHL win.

Three games later, after three losses, the Kings sent him back to Lewiston.

Three weeks later, he was gone again, this time to represent Canada at the World Junior Championships. The team won a gold medal, and Bernier returned to Lewiston in mid-January.

While he was gone that last time, speculation ran rampant that the Maineiacs might move the 19-year-old keeper.

“I spoke with Mark Just at the beginning of the year, and even at Christmastime,” Bernier said. “He said (they) never had any intention of trading (me). I think for the team, to keep a guy for four years, it’s great for the organization, and being here for four years has been great. I think I would have been sad if I was traded at Christmas, you have to restart everything, with the family, with my billet here and with the guys. It was great they did that for me.”

“In December, it was, ‘Are you going to trade him? Are you going to trade him?,'” Harding said, “and there was no way I was trading him. First of all, he’s a first-class kid who’s meant so much to this organization, he was going to play for nobody else.”

With the playoffs looming, there are more than a few among the Maineiacs’ faithful who are happy he’s still along for the ride.

The coaching staff and the players agree.

“He’s going to be huge in goal for us,” Harding said. “If we do a few things and don’t give up a lot of shots, we have a good chance to win a lot of games.”