LEWISTON – Saint John, losers of 11 of 13 games going into the Christmas break, have all of a sudden figured out how to win. The Sea Dogs, who won their second consecutive game following the break Wednesday night against the Lewiston Maineiacs, will again test the waters against Lewiston tonight, this time at the Colisee.
It is the team’s first of four visits to Lewiston this season.
Face-off is at 7 p.m. at the Colisee.
“The first thing that we did not do well is that we didn’t move the puck well,” said Maineiacs assistant coach Ed Harding. “Some of the older defensemen, knowing that we were a little shorthanded they tried to do too much instead of letting the puck do the work.”
Despite returning home early Thursday morning, the team was back on the ice later in the day, trying to work out the bugs.
“We had a pretty good 55-minute practice,” said Harding. “The boys were all a little bit tired, but if we can move the puck a little bit better, I think we’ll be a little bit more successful.”
With plenty of momentum prior to the Christmas break, the last thing the Lewiston Maineiacs were wishing for at that point was an eight-day layoff.
That came and went, as did a few players to various tournaments, and the team that took the ice this week in Halifax and Saint John was a shell of itself.
“The break killed us,” admitted Harding. “Not having Kevin Marshall here, that also hurts. All of the guys we have missing, it’s a certain chemistry. We had started to develop some chemistry with Mathieu Aubin, Marc-Andre Cliche and Jakub Bundil. There was some good chemistry with Jonathan Paiement paired up with Marshall. Things become a bit more difficult when you have to plug some other guys in, but that’s what we’re going to have to go with for the next three or four games.”
Part of the Maineiacs’ problem Wednesday was the play of Saint John netminder Jason Churchill, who on at least four occasions robbed point-blank shots by Lewiston forwards.
“The one thing (Churchill) was not good at (last year) was handling the puck,” said Harding, “and he’s become much better at that. He’s a great person to put in for an expansion team, and I don’t even really consider them an expansion team with five 20-year-olds. He keeps them in every game.”
The team concentrated on closing the gap between their own backchecking forwards and their blueliners in practice Thursday. According to Harding, that gap was a big problem against both Halifax and Saint John.
“I think we backchecked well, but with our D,’ we had a terrible gap,” said Harding. “There was a big gap between our forwards and our D,’ and we let Saint John walk in. We’ve got to do a better job that way. We out-chanced Saint John 18-11, so we were happy about that, but I still think we can get a few more chances 5-on-5.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
