BRACKNELL Bees opened their EPIHL campaign with two defeats last weekend, but player-coach Lukas Smital said: “There are a lot of positives we can take from them,” writes Dave Wright.

Bees went down 4-1 at Milton Keynes Lightning before losing 5-2 to Sheffield Steeldogs at The Hive.

They were let down by defensive errors on both nights, while Bees will also need to sharpen up their shooting skills.

Bees fired in 30 shots on Saturday, but managed only the one goal, while Lightning converted four from 38.

Their consolation goal came from Alex Barker in power play with less than four minutes of the game remaining.

For the hosts, former Bee Frantisek Bakrlik netted on 6:14 and 23:57 before helping to set up goals for Lewis Hook on 26:09 and Milan Baranyk on 41:50, the latter on power play.

As far as shots on goal were concerned, it was a similar story on Sunday with Bees having 24 compared to Sheffield’s 31.

The hosts, however, were denied by some stout defending and excellent saves from James Hadfield.

Alex Mettam was the busiest of the two net-minders, however he didn’t receive the same solid support from those in front of him.

As Smital said: “Let’s be honest – we gave them (Sheffield) the game. We made five major mistakes.

“But credit to them; they executed every single one of them well, and that’s what killed us.”

Bees’ hopes of getting their home league campaign off to a winning start were dealt a double early blow, as they conceded goals to Andy Hirst on 4:52 and Arnoldas Bosas on 7:12.

Lithuanian Bosas sliced through the middle unchallenged for a one-on-one with Mettam, and that was repeated when he made it 3-0 on 22:56.

Smital worked extra hard to get his side back in the game, twice going close in quick succession.

But the Bees did get the goal they deserved when, on power play, Scott Spearing setting up new signing Martin Pavilcek on 33:32.

The hosts, however, then showed a lack of discipline with Spearing (holding) and Josh Tetlow (delaying) both sent to the sin-bin in the space of 35 seconds late in the second period.

The former returned to the ice just in time to see Greg Wood net a fourth goal for the Steeldogs on 38:05.

Spearing did reduce the arrears on 52:21 from a chance set up by James Galazzi, only to see Sheffield string together arguably the best move of night which led to Pavel Mrna completing the scoring with a little over six minutes left on the clock.

Josh Smith was voted Bees’s player of the match.

Before the game, there was a minute’s applause for Jan Kneller, the avid Bees fan who recently lost her fight against cancer.