LEWISTON There arent many defenseman big enough to stop Lewiston Maineiacs defenseman-turned-forward Chad Denny in his tracks, and even fewer defenseman able to keep up with his 6-foot-3-inch, 217-pound frame as he tries to go wide.
Halifax bore the brunt of that realization Tuesday night.
Denny, playing forward for the third time this season, had a hat trick and Eric Castonguay and Stefano Giliati each scored as the Maineiacs overcame a slow start to defeat the Halifax Mooseheads 5-3 in front of 2,005 fans at the Colisee.
Well take the two points, said Maineiacs assistant coach Jeff Guay. Sometimes youre going to have those games where you dont play exactly the way you wanted to or hoped to. We needed the two points tonight before we go on the road.
(The Halifax defensemen) werent very mobile tonight, said Denny. We talked about that before the game, and it was part of the game plan to go wide around them.
It was a tough loss for Halifax (6-3-0-0), which outshot the Maineiacs 39-23 on the night, and had several solid scoring chances, only to come up empty.
Aside from allowing a goal 24 seconds into the game, Travis Fullerton played well in his third start for Lewiston, stopping 36 of those 39 shots to earn his third win.
Travis Fullerton played well, said Guay. The first one, we had a bad turnover by (Marc-Andre) Daneau in the neutral zone and he put that short side on Travis, but he bounced back. Hes a competitor and we know that. He fought through the screens. He lost his stick a couple of times, but he was battling.
Halifax coach Al MacAdam didnt dispute his teams abundance of scoring opportunities, and he admitted that the Maineiacs speed took his team a bit off guard.
I thought we had enough chances to score, said MacAdam. I think theres a fine line between getting and giving up, and I feel the way we play, well get our scoring chances, but if we start giving up those chances it puts in a position to chase, and we dont want to chase from behind.
After Rane Carnegie, who had a hand in all three Halifax goals, potted the first goal of the night, Lewiston answered right back on the power play thanks to a Giliati rebound goal.
Halifax scored again at 7:05 when David Brine poked the puck past Fullerton on a great cross-ice feed from Carnegie, but Lewiston once again knotted the game on Dennys first goal, a blazing wrister from the top of the right circle.
In the second, despite once again taking a one-goal lead on a Kevin Cormier tally, Halifax started to wilt under the Maineiacs speed.
We talked about that between the periods, said MacAdam. We thought we had played well in the first period. We had good pressure on them and in the second period we gave them too much speed through the middle and played a little more of a game that really were not good at playing, and they capitalized on those opportunities.
Castonguays snipe shot from the center of the slot beat Halifax netminder Jeremy Duchesne to spark the Maineiacs rally, and Denny potted his second less than two minutes later to give the home team its first lead of the game.
Dennys wraparound goal at 13:37 of the final period capped the scoring.
Lewiston resumes play this weekend with a three-games-in-three-nights swing to Acadie-Bathurst and Moncton.
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