Injuries take a toll on Lewiston’s defensemen.
By Justin Pelletier
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Already down a defenseman due to illness, the Maineiacs lost Richard Stehlik after the first period when he re-aggravated a groin injury, and Jonathan Paiement sat the last half of the third period after receiving a misconduct penalty.

With only four defenseman left, hanging on to a 2-2 tie was nearly impossible for Lewiston, especially against one of the top offensive teams in the league Sunday.

Moncton got two goals from Bruce Graham and another by Konstantin Zakharov in the third period to snatch a 5-2 win in front of a crowd of 2,755 at the Colisee.

“In general, I think we had a good effort tonight,” Maineiacs coach Mario Durocher said. “But this was an instance where we had to play more as a team. The offensive players had to come back and help out the D in the third period when we had only four defensemen.”

Despite the score, Matt Davis didn’t play badly between the pipes, stopping several tough shots from in close. Of the five goals, two went in off of Maineiacs’ sticks on deflections, one went in on a short-handed breakaway after a bad giveaway at the blue line, and another went in on a 5-on-3.

“Not all of the goals were the fault of the goalie tonight,” Durocher said. “There was a lot of experience in the stands tonight, not playing, too, and that hurt. One thing I was happy with was how we came back twice to tie the game after getting behind.”

Moncton jumped on the board first at 17:15 of the first when Karl Gagne tried to center a pass to Christian Gaudet. The puck glanced off of Travis Mealy’s stick as he dove across the passing lane and went past Davis for the goal.

Lewiston retaliated with a goal on the power play when Alex Bourret fired a shot from the high slot that slipped through a screen and found the back of the net waist high on the glove side of Moncton netminder Corey Crawford.

Just over a minute later, Moncton took advantage of a bad turnover at the Lewiston blue line while shorthanded as Ryan Salvis went in alone on Davis and sent him flying with three moves, finally roofing it on the backhand.

Lewiston did capitalize on that same power play 20 seconds later when Vladislav Balaz took a Paiement rebound in front and stuffed it by Crawford. It would be the last time the puck would see Crawford’s net. The Moncton goalie made 33 saves for the win.

“I think if we switch goalies with the other one on our bench, they win the game,” Moncton coach Christian Larue said. “Corey played well tonight, and I think he was the difference.”

Graham got his first less than two minutes into the final frame, Zakharov added his at the 10-minute mark on the power play and Graham doubled his total with 3:42 to go to seal the win, the Wildcats’ fourth in a row.

Lewiston returns to the ice on Thursday in Halifax before facing Cape Breton and Moncton again next weekend. The Maineiacs return to home ice for two games next week against the Screaming Eagles of Cape Breton and the Titan of Acadie-Bathurst.

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