LEWISTON — For any player in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League to put up three points in a game is an impressive feat.

For Cole Hawes to achieve the feat in his first game in nearly two months is downright impressive.

Hawes scored a goal, his seventh of the season, and added a pair of assists, Sam Carrier had three assists and was a plus-3 and Stefan Fournier added a goal and an assist to lead the Lewiston Maineiacs to a 5-2 win over Chicoutimi in front of 1,941 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Sunday.

Hawes, acquired by the Maineiacs during the preseason, left a game prior to Christmas with a broken arm. He made a memorable return Sunday to a deep lineup he hopes will keep him among the team’s regular skaters, at least for the time being.

“I’ve been looking forward to (coming back) for a long time, and I’m really happy about the outcome of it, that’s for sure,” Hawes said. “So far this year, I’ve had two injuries, so I’ve played probably the least amount of games on the team. I really want to get more games in, and I really want the coach to be confident when he puts me out there in the playoffs, so that he knows I’ll do my part.”

In similar fashion to the team’s come-from-behind win against Rimouski on Friday, the Maineiacs started slowly — more slowly than coach J.F. Houle might have liked.

“I’m happy we showed a lot of character to come back, but I’m not happy with the starts,” Houle said. “It’s going to come back and haunt us if we don’t get better in the first period. That’s something we’re going to talk to the players about. We have to do a better job to get prepared right from the get-go.”

For Chicoutimi, the apparent implosion after holding a 2-0 lead early in the second period had a simple explanation: speed.

“The third period, Lewiston was too strong,” Chicoutimi coach Richard Martel said. “They have too much speed. We were too slow, we’re not a fast team. Our top line is (Guillaume) Asselin, (Jonathan) Bonneau and (Billy) Lacasse, and after that, there is no depth.”

Asselin turned a Grade A scoring chance for Lewiston into a goal for Chicoutimi to open the scoring.

With time running down on an evenly-played first period, Fournier snapped a shot from 20 feet wide of the cage. The puck rimmed around the boards, and Asselin picked the puck up and raced up the right side. He picked up a teammate in neutral ice and created a 2-on-1 against Lewiston defender Sam Finn. Electing to shoot, Asselin ripped a slap shot from 15 feet away past goalie Nicholas Champion to put the visitors on top 1-0 at 17:36 of the first.

Asselin was back at it again early in the second. With the Sags on an early power play, Asselin took a feed as the trailer and ripped a delayed wrister short side past Champion’s glove, giving Chicoutimi a 2-0 advantage.

Antoine Houde Caron got one back for the Maineiacs at 9:36 of the second, ripping a wrsiter glove side to beat Francis Desrosiers on a feed from the left corner by Sam Henley less than a minute after a penalty to Chicoutimi had expired.

Things started to get rough later in the second, and the Maineiacs for the second consecutive game took advantage of the momentum swing. Hawes tipped the puck to Carrier, who lobbed the puck high into the air from the center zone. The puck landed behind the Chicoutimi defense, where Fournier swooped in, deked to his backhand and tucked the puck inside the left post behind Desrosiers.

“The lob to Fournier, after that, they owned the game,” Martel said. “They scored five unanswered goals after we had the lead. We just couldn’t keep up.”

“Just a couple of momentum changes here and there, it’s funny how that works,” Houle said. “I thought after we got that second goal, we were just flying. It’s just a matter of getting that one spark.”

Lewiston took over in the third. Hawes topped a feed from Carrier past Desrosiers high blocker on a rush up the left side just 3:19 into the frame to put the Maineiacs in front for the first time in the game. Olivier Dame-Malka snapped a shot from the left point through traffic after a feed from Hawes that beat Desrosier at 13:57 of the third to give the Maineiacs some breathing room, and Matthew Bissonnette capped the scoring at 15:01 as the late man on a rush up the middle.

The Maineiacs have another short turnaround to their next game, a 7 p.m. Tuesday contest against Shawinigan at the Colisee.