LEWISTON – The Maineiacs have taken a few penalties they didn’t really need the last two games, but the penalty killers have risen to the occasion.

Halifax went 1-for-8 Friday and were 1-for-9 Saturday on the power play. The Mooseheads even had a pair of five-on-three advantages in the third period Saturday. Halifax’s lone goal came on one of those.

“Last night and tonight, there were some penalties that we got that we don’t normally get,” said Jeff Guay, the Maineiacs assistant coach. “Some we might have deserved and some we might not have deserved. Your goalie can be your best penalty killer, and you saw that tonight, but give credit to the guys. They battled hard down low. The Kevin Marshalls and the Chad Dennys and the PK killers up top, they did the job too.”

The Maineiacs had an 82.8 percent success rate during the regular season on the penalty kill.

The Moosehead’s penalty kill hasn’t been as successful in this series. Lewiston has five power play goals in the first two games.

Mama, I’m coming home

The trip to Halifax represents one of the Maineiacs’ longest road trips whenever it comes up, but next week’s journey for Games 3, 4 and possibly 5 is worth every spin of the bus tires for Triston Manson. Lewiston’s enforcer is one of three Maineiacs who calls Nova Scotia home, and he’s the only one from Halifax.

“I’m excited. It would be good to beat them at home,” Manson said. “I grew up wanting to be a Moosehead. I’d rather beat them now.”

Manson felt a little bit at home in the first round against Shawinigan, too. His younger brother, Anton, plays for the Cataractes.

Need less cowbell

The Mooseheads had a small group of faithful joining them on the road.

A half dozen Halifax fans, dressed in Moosehead sweaters and armed with cowbells, provided constant noise in support of their team. Maineiacs fans, however, with their own bells and horns and scores of 8-4 and 4-1 helped drown them out.

Hitting Chad

Logan MacMillan seemingly had Maineiacs defenseman Chad Denny in his sights for a hit behind the red line Saturday night. Denny unloaded the puck and subsequently laid the smack down on the Halifax forechecker with a hit that sent MacMillan sprawling backward on his back.

Denny later delivered an elbow to Andrew White in the third period. It drew a penalty, and White was slow getting up after the hit.

Roster changes

The Maineiacs switched up defensemen for the second game of the series with Halifax.

Marc-Andre Crete and Sebastien Piche were both scratches while Michael Ward and Tom Michalik saw action on the blue line after sitting out the opener.

Piche was out with an illness. Crete had five minutes in penalties in the Friday’s 8-4 win and was the only defenseman with a minus (minus-1) for a plus-minus rating.

Hard to hold back

It’s not often a player wants to avoid hitting the puck in front of the net, but when the puck is at eye level, it’s a big no-no.

On Stefan Chaput’s first goal, at 10:16 of the third period, the Maineiacs’ forward watched as the puck floated off of his stick, off of a defenseman’s stick and into the air above the crease.

“My first instinct was to swing at it, to hit it,” Chaput said. “I had to hold my stick back, and it went in.”

The goal was reviewed, but allowed to stand after the replay showed Chaput did, indeed, avoid hitting the puck.

– By Justin Pelletier, Kevin Mills and Kalle Oakes

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