LEWISTON — The Lewiston and Edward Little boys hockey game started with a bang in the first period but as the game wore on the Red Eddies pulled away for a 6-3 victory Saturday at The Colisee.
The teams combined for five goals — three by Edward Little, two by Lewiston — in the opening 15 minutes.
“The first period, I was like, ‘Oh, crap, this is going to be a high-scoring game,” Edward Little forward Campbell Cassidy said. “Then it started to slow down …”
Cassidy and Drew Smith led the Red Eddies (7-2) with two goals apiece.
Lewiston coach Jamie King was pleased with the Blue Devils play in first period even though they trailed by a goal.
“It was 3-2 after one. It wasn’t a bad start, like I told the kids,” King said. “It would have been nice to be up, but we were right in the game for the first couple of periods.”
Edward Little defenseman Gavin Levesque got the party started a little over three minutes into the game with a blast from the right circle that gave the Red Eddies a 1-0 lead.
Edward Little coach Norm Gagne wanted to get the opening goal after having plenty of chances to score in the first period in Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to Falmouth.
“That was a goal to get off to a good start,” Gagne said. “Had we done that against Falmouth, it would have been a different game. We had so many opportunities in the first period; we came out like gangbusters. … This was big for us to respond (tonight).”
Lewiston (4-5) defenseman Luke Pomerleau scored on the Blue Devils’ first official shot on net six and a half minutes into the first period.
Edward Little’s second line scored the Eddies’ second goal when Andrew Clements found Tate Morse for a 2-1 advantage eight minutes into the period.
The Blue Devils got in penalty trouble in the middle of the period, with Daven Langlier and Ethan Blue picking up two-minute minor penalties and putting the Red Eddies on a 5-on-3 man advantage.
Cassidy notched his first tally on the power play as he coasted in on Lewiston goalie Ben Cloutier and bounced a snapshot off of Cloutier’s shoulder and into the goal for a 3-1 lead 10 minutes, 12 seconds into the first period.
Cassidy waited patiently to shoot the puck.
“Five-on-three, plenty of time; there was no reason to rush,” Cassidy said. “The goalie knew where I was and I was just taking my time to make sure I got it where I wanted it.”
After that goal, King replaced Cloutier (seven saves) with Gabe Pomerleau (10 saves).
Still shorthanded, Lewiston went on the offensive when forward Cody Dionne took the puck in the neutral zone and beat Edward Little goalie Gage Ducharme (eight saves) on a breakaway to cut the deficit to 3-2 less than a minute after Cassidy’s goal.
Dione has stepped up a few times this season when the Blue Devils are playing a man down.
“He has a couple of shorthanded goals,” King said. “He sparked us and got us back into the game.”
From there, it was all Red Eddies.
Drew Smith scored 73 seconds into the second period for a 4-2 lead, with linemates Tate Morse and Andrew Clements setting the goal up. It was the lone goal of the period.
Gagne didn’t like giving up the shorthanded goal in the first period but gave credit to his players for how they played in the middle frame.
“Like I said, we responded well in the second,” Gagne said. “I told them in the locker room: we needed the next goal, and we got it.”
Smith hasn’t had much game action with Morse and Clements, but the line clicked Saturday.
“I have never played with those two on the same line,” Smith said. “I think I played a little bit in practice with each one of them in past years. This week is when I really started playing with them and the chemistry is good.”
Cassidy scored his second goal early in the the third period, extending the lead to 5-2.
Smith recorded his second goal in the midway through the third.
Lewiston’s Ethan Blue capped the scoring with two minutes remaining in the game, cutting the deficit to 6-3.
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