Fife Flyers suffered back-to-back weekend defeats and they had poor starts in both Elite League games at home to Dundee Stars and at Sheffield Steelers.
A five goal blitz in the opening session had Steelers on easy street before over 9,000 fans and the home side outshot the visitors 58-22 in an 8-0 victory.
It took the English combine only 1min 41 sec to open their account, Patrick Watling scoring on the power play with Phelix Martineau called for high sticks only 15 seconds into the contest.
It was the same story on Saturday when Dundee effectively wrapped up the points at Kirkcaldy with a 3-0 first period scoreline. Stars eventually won 5-2.
Philippe Sanche, who has a habit of scoring against the Flyers, opened the scoring after 4min 45sec and Kyle Pouncy added No 2 five minutes later.
The third arrived after 17 minutes when Brendan Harms netted.
Fife responded with an unassisted strike from Phelix Martineau 1min 20sec into the second session for 3-1 but home fans did not have long to celebrate as Harms scored the fourth after 22min 55sec.
And it was 5-1 when Zachary Tsekos scored in the 32nd minute.
Kieran Craig scored four minutes from time to complete the scoring in a game in which Stars were outshot 45-33 but still came away with a comfortable win.
Johnny Curran, Fife’s interim head coach, said his men “looked great” in the first session of the game against Stars, controlling the period and deserving of scoring, but the negative was that they switched off at times.
He added: “We lost three (goals) and could have been down five. Until we have a full team buying in for a full period then we are going to be down goals. That is how good this league is.”
Curran said he men pushed back in the second and added: “We started to look like a hockey team and in the third we were looking for some guys to be more lethal around the net. We were passing up Grade A opportunities.”
PICTURE: Fife v Sheffield earlier this season courtesy of the Elite League
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