WATCH - Sam Zajac keen for Leeds Chiefs to crank up pressure on NIHL National rivals

The Chiefs’ player-coach was speaking after a weekend which saw them split a double-header with Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Steeldogs, Ben Morgan the slightly happier boss after taking a point from Saturday’s 6-5 overtime loss before hitting back 24 hours later to deservedly run out 5-2 winners on home ice.

“I was delighted with the two points in Blackburn but, on Sunday I think we were flat, right from the warm-up really,” said Zajac.

“But, despite that, we came out and had a great start in Sheffield. We went up by one and we were buzzing, forechecking really well and putting them under a lot of pressure and we created loads of turnovers just like we want to do.

“But then they got a bit of a fortunate bounce on the first goal and I think the heads dropped and we struggled to recover from that.”

After going into the first intermission 2-1 down, Zajac said the Chiefs did themselves few favours in the middle period.

“We didn’t manage the puck well in the second period, or the third, they had way too much of it,” he added. “And we’ve talked recently about how we can get at teams more and how we don’t have to come out and play desperate from the off and try and scrape results.

“We’re good enough to take the game to teams and we did that for probably a total of three periods this weekend - but it wasn’t six periods and that is what a two-game weekend is all about.”

The Chiefs snapped a four-game losing streak with their ‘home’ win in Blackburn over Sheffield and Zajac remains convinced his team is a genuine contender to make the post-season in their debut campaign.

But he couldn’t hide his frustration at not taking more points from the weekend.

“It was good to snap that losing streak, we’re here to win games, obviously, but this was a weekend we highlighted as a must-win,” he added.

“We went into the weekend thinking we could get four points if we were at our best and we’ve just got the two, while they’ve obviously taken the three with that overtime loss.

“And I think, come the end of the season, they might be a team we could be battling with for a play-off spot. I think there’s going to be a group of four or so teams who are going to be battling for that kind of spot.

“So that makes it disappointing to give them the extra one on Saturday, particularly with us having been in such a commanding position.”

The Chiefs have just a one-game weekend coming up, a 'home' game against Hull Pirates which sees them take over Blackburn Ice Arena as their venue for the day on Saturday (Face-off 5pm). Tickets can be bought HERE