CARL Greenhous, player-coach of the Gillingham Invicta Dynamos ice hockey team, refused to be too critical of his team as their play-off ambitions went up in smoke at the weekend.

Two defeats, 5-0 at Slough Jets and 7-1 at home to favourites Milton Keynes Lightning, mean the double winners of last year will win nothing this season.

The Mos were without Duane Ward and Elliott Andrews played despite still feeling the effects of concussion and a broken nose sustained last weekend.

Greenhous said: “We put up as much of a fight as we could, but we were under-manned, out-gunned and outclassed by two better sides. MK in particular are a very good team and they played well on the night.

“But I'm not disappointed in my players. To have won these games would have required something extra special and we just did not have enough gas in the tank.

“No disrespect to our players, but we also don't have enough skillful players who can cause teams like these problems. MK have three strong lines and our two just could not compete.”

Against Slough on Saturday Matt Van Der Velden faced 55 shots compared to his opposite number's 14.

Going into the third, Slough only led 1-0, but the Mos disappointingly collapsed to give the home side - minus absent player coach Warren Rost - a chance of play-off survival.

Conceding an early goal is becoming a nasty habit at the Ice Bowl and last night the Mos defence were beaten after just 29 seconds when Greg Owen was given all the time in the world to place his shot past the exposed Van Der Velden.

The brilliant Gary Clarke, deservedly named MK's man of the match, scored two powerplay goals and a dejected looking Mos side skated off 3-0 down after the first period.

They emerged a more resilient side and Matt Beveridge scored with a neat flick over Barry Hollyhead's flailing glove at 29.27.

With steely determination the Mos stopped the free-flowing MK hockey until 37.26 when Nick Poole made it three out of three successful powerplays.

Unfortunately for a second night in succession the Mos' last 10 minutes of play was not good enough with three pucks fizzing past Van Der Velden.

And the scoreline would have been worse had it not been for some top-class netminding from the Dynamos goaltender who is becoming somewhat of a one-on-one expert.

Greenhous said: “Ward won't be playing next weekend and Michael Wales is suspended. We're out of contention so we will play the role of spoiler to Isle of Wight who are still in with an outside chance.”