Blue Devils. Red Storm.

North. South.

Unstoppable force. Immovable object.

Saturday’s Class A boys’ hockey state championship game should be a classic. Lewiston and Scarborough played to a pair of draws during the regular season a week apart. The first was a 1-1 contest that featured more scoring chances than the final score indicated. The second was 4-4, and featured swinging momentum.

The team’s styles are different. Lewiston likes to get up and down the ice with shots aplenty. Scarborough wants the game to be a grind-it-out, defensive battle.

Something’s got to give.

“They’re fast, and we respect their speed,” Scarborough coach Norm Gagne said. “But St. Dom’s had a lot of speed last year, too. We take pride in our defense, and that’s what we’re going to bank on coming Saturday, that we can play a good defensive game.”

St. Dominic Academy was an offensive outburst waiting to happen in last year’s state final, but the Saints were then stymied by the Red Storm, 2-1, in double overtime.

So, too, were the Blue Devils in the 1-1 tie during the regular season, hitting on just one of 29 shots. Senior captain Griffin Wade said getting to the net to make those shots harder for Scarborough goalie Ross LeBlond to see will be just one of the keys for Lewiston.

“It’s the little things that people don’t see, and don’t necessarily talk about in the stands that we’ve talked about and the seniors have talked about in this locker room that’s going to potentially give us a chance to put us over the top,” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said. “Work ethic. Paying attention to details. Playing their game. Staying out of the box. Doing the little things right.”

The Blue Devils rarely had trouble scoring during the regular season, with the 1-1 tie against Scarborough and a 1-0 overtime loss to Bangor among the outliers. Belleau said those games were a few examples of his team facing adversity, and it’s something his team has worked on handling.

Belleau said his team did just that in the North regional final. The Blue Devil lead was just 2-1 after two periods, but Lewiston put the game away with three goals in three minutes after a lengthy delay for bad ice conditions less than a minute into the third.

There will be adversity in Saturday’s state final. Belleau knows it. So does Gagne.

The latter has been teaching his teams to deal with adversity for more than 40 years. Three of those were spent coaching Lewiston, with all three years ending in state championship defeat. Belleau has also been on the losing end of state finals for Lewiston, which is going on 14 years without a state championship.

But both coaches have also coached other teams to championship wins. Last year was Gagne’s seventh after winning three each with Gardiner and Waterville. Belleau coached back-to-back championship teams at Edward Little.

Saturday’s game will be emotional. Games of the biggest magnitude almost always are.

“It’s going to take us playing a disciplined game,” Gagne said. “We have to play disciplined.”

Penalties doomed the Red Storm in a regular-season loss to St. Dom’s. The Blue Devils could take advantage the same way, with a lethal power play.

That emotion will have to be kept in check by each team’s senior heartbeat — Lewiston’s Kyle Morin and Scarborough’s Matt Caron. Both are among their team’s leading scorers, but their leadership might be even more influential to their respective locker rooms.

Goalies Jacob Strout (Lewiston) and Ross LeBlond (Scarborough) will have to be on top of their games. Strout hasn’t faced the same number of shots as LeBlond has, but has the experience of playing in last year’s run to the regional final. LeBlond is in his first season at Scarborough after transferring from Cape Elizabeth.

Expect the Androscoggin Bank Colisee to be rocking once the puck is dropped Saturday evening. Then from there, expect the unexpected.

“Going in it’s a dead 50-50 chance,” Wade said.

wkramlich@sunjournal.com

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