Captain's Corner - Three Rivers sweep, frustration, Toledo

Each week during the 2012-13 season, Metro Jets’ captain Matt Stirling will give his thoughts on topics surrounding the team as it makes its way through the North American 3 Hockey League grind.

-- On what prevented the Jets from getting a win last weekend against Three Rivers.

Penalties. Both games we seemed to spend most of the game in the box. The Saturday game really I put most of the emphasis on the officials, as it seemed to be fairly one-sided and although that happens, it was to the point where some of the rules seemed to be amended and player safety was on the line. The Sunday game we got carried away in their style of play and ended up taking more penalties than the night before. We spent most of the game killing penalties and never got anything started otherwise. When you take upwards of 12 penalties in a game, you can’t expect to win.

-- On if frustration is setting in within the team ranks.

Yeah, to an extent. We know what we are capable of and how good we can be, but we have come up short the past two weekends one way or another.

-- On keeping the team focused during a losing skid.

The veteran guys assist me and try to keep everyone level-headed. The highs can’t be too high and the lows can’t be too low. The only way to really get out of this skid we are in is to keep working hard in practice and continue to improve as a team.

-- On expectations for this weekend's home-and-home with Toledo.

Toledo is another tough team to play, especially in Toledo. These types of games are the ones that you need to help establish yourself in your division. Giving up eight points in the last two weekends is not good and we need to win this weekend.