LEWISTON — As with anything, it’s all in how you look at it, and there were two very different perspectives on Lewiston’s 2-0 victory over Cony/Hall-Dale/Monmouth in a Class A North boys hockey matinée Saturday at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

The Rams, though not particularly pleased about dropping the points, were happy to have executed a defensive game plan almost flawlessly. The unbeaten Blue Devils, however, fresh off a 12-0 drubbing of No. 2 Bangor earlier in the week, were left less than satisfied with their own performance.

“I feel fortunate to get out of here with a win,” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said. “Cony had a plan in mind and their kids bought into it and worked hard. It wasn’t surprising to us, because a lot of teams try to do it to us. … Our kids didn’t play particularly well, but I’m not going to look for excuses. We’ve got to get better.”

Lewiston (6-0-0) got goals from Jeromey Rancourt and Dustin Larochelle and a 13-save performance from junior netminder Conrad Albert to earn the victory. The Blue Devils fired 37 shots at the Cony goal, using team speed and quick puck movement, but very few of those were of the “Grade A” variety from between the hash marks. The ones that were were met by an outstanding effort from Cony junior goalie Dalton Bowie, who finished with 35 saves.

“Overall, I was pretty happy. You’re never happy losing, but I was happy with the effort we put forth and how we played,” Cony head coach Chad Foye said. “We didn’t extend ourselves too much, and we didn’t give anything away.”

Chasing a two-goal deficit into the third period, Cony (4-2-0) tried to open things up more through the middle of the ice. The Rams produced chances from leading scorer Avery Pomerleau and Cam Wilson, but they weren’t able to break through and produce a frantic final few minutes of the contest.

The closest Cony came to scoring happened with just over three minutes remaining, when sophomore Reed Hopkins — trailing Pomerleau’s partial breakaway — popped a rebound over a downed Albert. Officials had blown the play dead before Hopkins’ shot.

“We’d had a whole bunch of chances, and it just wasn’t happening for us. That’s part of hockey,” Wilson said. “They called it off and said our guy was blocking the goalie, but I didn’t see him bump the goalie. I thought it should have been a 2-1 goal.”

The first period was marked by penalty-ridden play for both teams, but the Rams lost a wonderful opportunity to put the Blue Devils in a hole early.

A lengthy two-man advantage in the middle of the stanza for Cony was washed out by a Pomerleau tripping call, and a boarding major to Lewiston’s Brad McLellan was nullified when Ram defenseman Tyler Dostie was sent off for tripping just over a minute after Pomerleau returned to the ice.

“I think the power play would have helped us out, especially against a team like this,” Wilson said. “The penalties killed us. If we had minimized those penalties, I bet it would have been a 2-1 or 2-2 game.”

“That did bite us,” Foye said of being unable to cash in on the power play. “We had a chance where we really could have established something and gotten something going offensively, and it just didn’t materialize for us.”

During the lengthy exchange of penalties, Rancourt put Lewiston on the board during a 4-on-4 spell, corralling a late pass in the slot area and lifting a nifty backhander over Bowie for a 1-0 lead at the 7:35 mark.

The Blue Devils added to the lead in the second period, when a bad turnover deep in the Cony zone allowed Cody Doyon to pick off the puck in the right circle and center for Larochelle in front. Larochelle swept his five-hole shot home for a 2-0 lead at the 6:40 mark.

Doyon set up both Lewiston goals on the day.

“Doyon worked hard and played a pretty good game,” Belleau said. “He’ll be the first to tell you he can play better, but he skated hard.”

Bowie did his best in the middle period to give Cony a chance — making 12 of his 35 saves in the frame, including a stop on Alex Robert in heavy traffic just prior to Larochelle’s goal. In the final minute of the period, Larochelle cut through the neutral zone at a high rate of speed and produced two scoring chances for himself, but Bowie stood firm to stop both the initial bid and the follow-up chance at the top of the crease.

“(Bowie) was huge,” Foye said. “He played really well. He did a really good job, and I thought we did a good job challenging their shots, too.”

“Our kids didn’t come ready to play the way we expect them to,” Belleau said. “That’s in part because they’re kids, it’s in part because we’ve got things to work on, and it’s in large part because of what Cony did. They worked extremely hard. We’ll keep working and find a positive out of a negative.”

Travis Barrett — 621-5621

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TBarrettGWC