LEWISTON – Knowing that the second period has been the team’s Achilles’ heel early this season, a one-goal deficit wasn’t a welcome sight in the Lewiston Maineiacs’ rearview mirror at the first intermission.

So they called an audible, and scored a touchdown.

Six different Lewiston skaters scored in a wild second period past a previously stellar Timo Peilmeier to give the team the boost it needed, helping the homestanding Maineiacs to a 7-2 win over the St. John’s Fog Devils at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Friday.

Lewiston added the extra point in the third.

The win lifts Lewiston’s record to 3-5 on the season and is the team’s second consecutive win after a 1-5 start.

“The five games we lost, it was pretty tough for the team’s spirit,” forward Billy Lacasse (2 goals) said. “Now, after this, we’re doing much better.”

The slow start had little to do with poor play from the Maineiacs. Sure, Head Coach Ed Harding said, there were some turnovers, but not nearly as many as in previous games. And the pressure was there.

“Their goalie played well,” Harding said. “He made some good stops. We had 14 shots on net, and that’s what we talked about between periods.”

In the second, though, the Maineiacs battled a bit harder through the Fog Devils’ checks in the offensive zone.

“We failed to score some goals on the power play when we had a chance to make it 2- or 3-0,” Fog Devils’ coach Real Paiement said.

Todd Chinova, Billy Lacasse and Stefano Giliati scored consecutive goals in a 2:11 span early in the middle frame to put Lewiston on top 3-1.

“That killed them,” forward Stefan Chaput said. “We got the momentum from there and we kept it. That was the key of the game.”

“We got a feel for them after the first,” Giliati said.

“We looked a lot more comfortable in the second. Once we got the first goal, the floodgates were open.”

St. John’s nearly made it a game again on a power play following the Maineiacs’ third goal, but Peter Delmas made three of his 28 saves to preserve the advantage.

Then, while he played like a brick wall in the first, Peilmeier turned into a block of Swiss cheese in the second.

Stefan Chaput made it 4-1 at 15:37 of the second on a feed from Giliati, Alex Beaton made it 5-1 at 17:20 on a fat rebound after a Matt Bourdeau blast, and Chris Tutalo found the back of the net at 19:08 on the power play on a shot from the top of the left circle on a deflection in front.

“They beat us back to the puck every time,” Paiement said. “They scored goals where, we took them out, eliminated them on the boards, but they batled back to the net and they got the goals.”

Lacasse added the seventh Lewiston goal – his second of the game and third of the season – at 2:03 of the third to drive the final spike into the Fog Devils’ chances at a comeback.

Olivier Guilbault potted the first goal of the game early to post a 1-0 Devils’ advantage, and he assisted on Mario Kempe’s third-period tally to make it 7-2.

Lewiston next skates Sunday afternoon a 4 p.m. against the Moncton Wildcats at the Colisee.