Alexandre Picard’s hat trick points Lewiston in the right direction.
LEWISTON – Sidney Crosby may be the most hyped player in all of Canada, but more than 3,300 fans watched the Lewiston Maineiacs give Crosby and the Rimouski Océanic one of the coldest receptions they’ll see all season at Central Maine Civic Center Friday night.
Paced by Alexandre Picard’s hat trick in the first period and 26 saves on 27 shots by Brandon Verge, the Maineiacs thumped the Océanic, 6-1. It was their third big win over Rimouski in as many tries this season. Of Rimouski’s seven losses, three have been to the Maineiacs.
“That team works hard at all the small details,” said Rimouski coach Donald Dufresne. “They are a much better team than the standings show, and it’s hard to believe that they are at the bottom in the division.”
Lewiston started Brandon Verge for the third time this season against Rimouski, and he responded as well, if not better than, the previous two times. Six of his 26 stops were on breakaways and two were against Crosby.
“He played well against them the last two times,” said Maineiacs coach Mario Durocher. “He made some big saves and let us get the early lead.”
“I just seem to play well against them,” added Verge. “The team played well in front of me, just like they did the other times against Rimouski. I just had to stop the pucks to give us a chance to win.”
Verge’s biggest save may have been in the first period, stopping Crosby twice from in close to preserve the 0-0 tie. Later in the period, Verge stuffed Zbynek Hrdel on a nice pass from Crosby, again to preserve the tie.
“He played very well tonight,” said Crosby of Verge. “We can’t say that we didn’t have chances, but we could have had more.”
After a tight first 10 minutes of the game, Lewiston broke the ice when Picard banged home a rebound on a Gabriel Balasescu attempt in close, giving the home team a 1-0 lead.
Four minutes later, Balasescu, who had three points on the night, notched his only goal of the game on a redirect of a Vladislav Balaz shot.
Picard staked the team to a 4-0 lead with two more goals in the last three minutes of the game.
“The first goal, I was just in the right place for the rebound,” said Picard. “On the second, I pulled the puck back toward me a bit off another deflection, and on the third I told (Alex) Bourret to slide it to me off the face-off. We were at the end of a penalty kill.”
Lewiston limped through a sluggish second period and allowed Rimouski its only goal of the game when Crosby managed a second assist on a Dany Roussin goal, one Verge had little chance at getting on the tail end of a 3-on-2.
The Maineiacs topped off the scoring in the third period on goals by Francis Trudel at 10 seconds and by Mathieu Aubin at 2:53.
“We did well to shut them down, and the biggest thing is that we got two points,” said Durocher. “We willl have a short practice tomorrow, and then we have to get two more on Sunday against Halifax. That is a big game for us and we need those points at this time in the season.”
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