LEWISTON – Jonathan Bernier saw Mario Kempe’s path. He knew what the St. John’s forward was about to do, and he blocked what he thought were all of the possible angles the puck could take off of Kempe’s stick.

He missed one.

Kempe slid to his right after skating the 90 feet from the red line in on Bernier, who slid to his left in the butterfly. Kempe, at the last possible moment, flipped the puck over Bernier’s right pad. The puck had barely rippled the mesh behind the Lewiston Maineiacs’ netminder when he threw his head back.

He knew it.

“I thought I had him,” Bernier said. “I followed him well. I didn’t want to open up my legs, because I didn’t want him to go five-hole, and I thought he didn’t have any angles.”

Kempe’s shootout goal lifted the visiting Fog Devils to a 2-1 win over the Maineiacs in front of 2,275 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Sunday. St. John’s earned just its second win in its last eight games, both of which have come against Lewiston. The Maineiacs, meanwhile, earned one point and climbed in the standings to 17-10-1-1 (36 points), keeping them in third place by one over the surging Saint John Sea Dogs. The Fog Devils got a much-needed two points to climb to 11-14-1-3 (25 points).

“This was the same style of game as the one we lost,” St. John’s coach Real Paiement said. “This was one of our better efforts this year, a full 65-minute effort. We were physical all night long and made much better decisions with the puck.”

Lewiston started the game in full control.

“We came out like a house afire,” Maineiacs’ coach Ed Harding said. “This team was a little banged up, they’d been on the road and we tried to jump out to a big start. We had three or four golden opportunities.”

Timo Pielmeier, the Fog Devils’ NHL-drafted goalie, was up to the challenge. He made 30 saves on 31 shots, and he stopped all three Lewiston shootout attempts.

After the strong start, Lewiston found the penalty box – often.

“Forces out of our control took over,” Harding said. “When you have to kill two 5-on-3s within two minutes of each other, I thought our guys did a tremendous job.”

St. John’s did sneak one past Bernier during the Fog Devils’ second two-man advantage of the first period, though, and posted a 1-0 lead. Ryan Graham got the goal.

In the second, Lewiston and St. John’s played a game of cat-and-mouse. Neither wanted to make a critical error.

On the Maineiacs’ third power play of the game, Stefano Giliati tucked the puck past Pielmeier after a deflected puck bounced to Danick Paquette in the center of the slot. Paquette wheeled the puck off his backhand to Giliati, who was alone at the right post for the easy tap-in.

“We’d been trying that in practice,” Giliati said. “This was the first time we were able to get it to work in a game.”

The teams skated through a scoreless third and through overtime to force the shootout. Alex Beaton and Stefan Chaput and Giliati all missed for Lewiston, while Bernier stopped Jean-Simon Allard and T.J. Brennan before Kempe managed his goal on the Fog Devils’ third attempt.

Lewiston next plays Friday, Saturday and Sunday on the road before returning to the Colisee for a home game on Wednesday, Dec. 5 against division-leading Halifax.