WEDNESDAY night’s defeat to Milton Keynes Lightning was a tough one to take for the boys.

I think we approached it in the right way. We had a good couple of days preparation, said all the right things, came out and started in the right manner, got the lead and were happy after the first period.

However, this is another learning curve. In play-off hockey, you can’t afford to switch off for five minutes. We switched off and conceded three goals.

If I was to say one weakness we have in our team, it is that we are not mentally strong.

When you don’t have that, it is hard to have success in the play-offs. Hopefully, this learning curve is not too late.

We still have a shot of making the finals. We have two games left and if we can win those and be three from six, we can still go through.

We are going to play until the end, just like we did on Wednesday.

The coach has asked us not to quit and we left everything out there and clawed ourselves back a little bit.

However, when you switch off, just for five minutes, none of the desire and will can bring you back from four or five goals down.

There is a lot of youth in the team and a lot of guys with a lack of play-off experience. You gain this mental toughness from experience and you can’t buy experience.

I have never played the play-offs in a group structure like this, it is different and we still have a shout.

Hopefully, we can put everything on the line again in those last two games, just like we did in the third period, and you can see the bright side of it – when we really go for it, we are very dangerous.

If we can put 60 minutes in, and I know it is a cliché, we are a dangerous team and anything is possible.

It’s persistence and experience. When you think you can have a shift off in the play-offs, you just can’t.

It reminds me of the Russians when they play against Canada. They have a certain way and they are super-skilled, just like us, but they have these mental lapses which is a bad characteristic for a play-off team.

Hopefully, if we can learn quick enough, we still have time left to claw things back.