Pardon my abscence for the past couple of days. My artesian well is operating at much of the same efficiency as the MAINEiacs offense of late… pretty much at a trickle at best, and with very low pressure. While the well is in process of being fixed, the problems with the MAINEiacs may take a little longer to cure.

My well goes down into terra firma approximately 444 feet to the source where water should be abundantly flowing. Today, MAINEiacs players and coaches are looking at roughly the same distance to their hearts to find out what to do next.

The losses this early is the season certainly is no surprise, given the players who are away to NHL & AHL camps. Jonathan Bernier, Lewiston’s top goaltender for the past two seasons, appears to be starting the season with the Los Angeles Kings. Top point-getter from last season, David Perron, is getting a long hard look by the St. Louis Blues, and is iffy to return. Stefano Giliati, the MAINEiacs top scoring 20 year-old on the roster is in Albany, NY attending camp with the River Rats, and the possibility is there that he stay. Add Stefan Chaput’s “medical condition” and when he will make his much balley-hooed season debut is still a great big fat “?”.

While the team managed to start the year stomaching the absence of Bernier, and finding a way to live without Perron, once Giliati left all hope offensively went out I-495 with him. For a team with some strong young talent to be a virtual no-show on paper is concerning.

What is most concerning, is how the losses are happening. Lewiston has been outscored 9-1 in the third period in the last three games, absolutely unheard of a season ago, or under any in the previous three seasons. Where heart, pride and hard-work were a staple of the team, the three principles to the MAINEiacs success have been healthy scratches from the line up for the past three games, and one scratches his head as to why.

Even without the Big Three in town, there are plenty of faces still around from last season’s team that know what it takes to get the job done. Don’t get me wrong, the team in it’s current state is hardly a shell of it’s former self from an offensive standpoint, and that was no surprise coming out of camp even with Giliati in the line up. It was going to take all hands on deck to bury the puck in the net, but to this point, the hands just aren’t there.

MAINEiacs GM & Head Coach Ed Harding told the Lewiston Sun Journal about bringing a “fragile” hockey team home after a dreadful start of the road trip. Harding as quoted in the column, berated the the veterans on the club as being the key source to the collapse of all three games. The quote that stood out above the rest, was this one:

“They scored to go ahead 2-1, and instead of our veterans showing some leadership, they just got deflated and figured that was the game. This is what has happened in all three games on the road,” Harding told Justin Pelletier, beat writer from the paper who covers the club.

The way Harding speaks, the veterans just quit on the games. What needs to be examined is why the quit after three consecutive nights, at more or less the same time in every game. Those answers have to be found from within every single person that walks into the door to the locker room… whether they lace up the skates or not.

There is no reason, on paper, that this MAINEiacs club can’t give teams a better game and be in the hunt to win the game come the third period, so as long as they play like a team. Remember that word that was burned into the back of our brains for the last three seasons? Together Everyone Achieves More and the mantra that worked into a championship? While it is possible for Lewiston to still wake up being 1-4 today and lost three straight to open the road trip, a 3-2 or 2-1 loss is much easier to palate than 4-1, 8-2 and 6-1.

While Harding points his fingers to the veterans for not stepping it up, cleary the problem is this version of the 2007-08 Lewiston MAINEiacs have not found a way to play as team as of yet. Until all 20 guys can look at each other in the locker room and believe in themselves and believe in their coaches, it’s going to be hard to expect any difference in outcomes for the forseable future.

Hopefully, as the veterans collect their championship rings and show them to the rookies, that they each take them under their arms and bring the level of the organization back up where it should be. It’s not too late to start.

offthepost@lewistonhockey.com